I'm not sure how to go about responding to this. While there are many things I agree with, I actually am very firmly with Palestine on this, as a matter of ethics, not that I agree in any way with Islamic (or Jewish, for that matter) ideas about how society should be run. This is despite my religious upbringing which instilled from a very young age nothing less than the idea that Palestine deserved Biblical retribution. It seems that my parents and extended family, who are still lamenting over the death of Rhodesia, are getting their wish. I don't want to be harsh, Sophie, because I respect you as a person and understand where you are coming from as far as the antisemitism that has definitely ramped up lately, but, aside from the joke, I feel like I've read this same essay about a dozen times over the past year alone.
But, at the end of the day, Palestinians have been dehumanized by Israel, and this is far more than merely a war between Israel and Hamas. Even Desmond Tutu, after traveling there, called the apartheid perpetuated by Israel worse than what happened in South Africa. Zeteo recently put out a documentary called Israel's Reel Extremism which shows how this is perpetuated by the state run media. While I also condemn Hamas, the thing is, every tactic that Hamas is accused of, such as planting their military bases deeply within civilian infrastructure, using human shields and indiscriminately targeting civilians, lying about numbers etc, Israel also does that, and on a grander scale. There is so much I could specifically get into, but I would probably need an entire essay myself, especially to cover the rest of the situation in the Middle East.
Hey Dan, thanks for respectfully critiquing my position. I will however have to push back against "every tactic that Hamas is accused of, such as planting their military bases deeply within civilian infrastructure, using human shields and indiscriminately targeting civilians, lying about numbers etc, Israel also does that, and on a grander scale." Really? What military bases does Israel plant deep within civilian structures that is on a 'grander scale' than the largest hospital in the area? That's like if we kept Fort Liberty in a tunnel under the Mayo Clinic. You can certainly call Israel out for wrongdoings, but saying that they are not only moral equivalents to Hamas but actually worse, cannot be substantiated by any data. But if you ever do want to write an essay on the subject, I would really look forward to reading it from a good faith perspective!
The relative number of people each side has killed should be data enough for the moral claim, as well as who wields the power in this situation. There is no ideological hijacking here. It is not against any progressive values as you bizarrely claim to want to protect an oppressed group from an oppressor, even if we disagree with the actions of the oppressed. There is no calculus on this that can make this take make any sense.
From Zeteo, which is one of the few media orgs with, and listening to, reporters on the ground during this conflict, despite how many journalists the IDF has killed (not by accident):
"Ironically, Israel today has more than 53 buildings, including schools, hospitals, and synagogues, decorated with plaques commemorating how Zionist militias used them to hide combatants and weapons until 1948. The Israelis have used UN schools in Gaza as bases to conceal soldiers and tanks, launch sniper attacks, and detain and interrogate Palestinian civilians. They have also used schools in the Israeli cities of Sderot and Sha’ar HaNegev since Oct. 7 as military bases to store weapons and accommodate soldiers.
"In Gaza, Israel has itself engaged extensively in actual human shielding since Oct. 7, including dressing Gazan detainees in Israeli uniforms and forcing them against their will to inspect tunnels and potential boobytraps. Haaretz cites one Israeli soldier whose superiors justified this practice by pointing out that too many dogs of the Oketz canine unit were getting wounded or killed. Such a situation has popularized the phrase 'every accusation is a confession.'"
Also, "When Israel bombed Gaza’s Taba’een school in August, killing more than 100 Palestinians, many of whom were hacked into scattered pieces, the Israeli military again called all civilian victims “human shields” and said without evidence that it targeted Hamas members at the school – a claim that was refuted. The twisted logic here is that the mere presence of alleged Hamas members, even if they were there as displaced refugees themselves, renders everyone in that overcrowded school a legitimate target." https://zeteo.com/p/the-myth-of-human-shields-israel-gaza
Now, it is also clear that the IDF does not give a damn if it massacres civilians as collateral, given they deliberately avoid using precision weapons and opt for those almost designed to be as messy as possible.
They also use infrastructure as weapons, having cut power and supplies, and are even trying to stop any aid getting in for extremely spurious reasons, like pretending everything that could possibly get in can be used as a weapon by Hamas, including insulin shots, or that all of the aid is going to Hamas etc, when every independent org on earth is basically calling out their BS on this and saying the conditions on the Gaza Strip are some of the worst on earth.
No, this is ridiculous. It's not just a both sides thing. The oppression of Palestinians at the hands of Israel has been going on for decades, and one of the saddest parts about it is that for a time, they had been so pushed back and so dehumanized that the average Israeli and the average Jew forgot all about them, as the Israeli government ignored their pleas, basically doing whatever they wanted without anyone noticing. And then a terrorist attack happened, and suddenly everyone woke up. But of course, instead of a targeted operation, Israel decided "alright, let's just annihilate this entire population and pretend we are just defending ourselves." It's basically Oct 7 vs an entire year of a relentless onslaught as revenge. It's insulting that people have ended up buying into their propaganda, despite the fact that they aren't even good at it.
I'm not even going to get into the whole issue of whether Israel was founded on stolen land, on which you've defended them here, and I think misguidedly. It doesn't really matter as far as the actual human rights violations they've perpetrated in the region since.
That one side is better at protecting ita civilians, and the other sees the death of its civilians as a valid tactic, including and I quote "we encourage our civilians to protecting our (Hamas) buildings with their bare chests against Israeli warplanes" doesn't in any way make the side with more casualties more righteous. In fact, in Ukraine /Russia war, Russia reportedly sustained way more casualties. And yet, we know who is the more righteous, don't we? The stronger military isn't always wrong, you know.
Funny how Israel were careless with the lives of the more left wing kibutzniks and Nova “peace” lovers and even gunned or grenaded dozens of them on October 7th aka the Hannibal directive. I wonder if they would have been so careless with repeated reports of a planned military assault on the illegal settlers in the West Bank. I think not. It would have drawn too much attention on the illegality of those settlements & their atrocities against Palestinians. No matter. Now we all know. H are probably doing an Algeria- that’s the kind of tactic less powerful groups who fiercely love their land adopt. And it’s working- most of the world’s citizens are repulsed by you, & in the medium term, Israel in its current form will cease to exist.But in this unequal “war”, I’ve yet to hear of reliable reports of H deliberately or mistakenly killing dozens of its own citizens. That’s Israel’s role.
Well argued. You left out that Mossad HQ is smack bang in the middle of Tel Aviv. If one were to believe every lie the IDF have claimed about Hamas operating under hospitals and schools, they are basically saying every Gazan is Hamas I lose count of how many times they have attacked Al Shifa hospital, but the second last time Hamas employees ( NOT militants) were gathering to receive their pay, and that is whom they massacred en masse. H are like ghosts, when the dust settles, we’ll have it confirmed that the IDF have killed way less Hamas militants than they claim, if you are going to make the claim that every Gazan male is a potential Hamas militant, then half of the I670 odd Israeli civilian victims of Oct 7 who were actually off duty reservists or off duty active duty IDF are anything but “innocent”. It is part and parcel of the de-humanising process: Gazan children are just future terrorists, whereas the active duty IDF young women captured on Oct 7 were “ innocent girls” who play the viiolin etc. I witnessed the racism in Israel against non Jews 40 years ago; it has only got worse and more overt in recent years; and it’s coming into full view in this Genocide.
Your quote is out of context and disingenuous. The buildings under discussion were not Hamas installations (as you parenthetically claim) but Palestian homes:
“The policy of people confronting the Israeli warplanes with their bare chests in order to protect their homes has proven effective against the occupation… we in Hamas call upon our people to adopt this policy in order to protect the Palestinian homes.” https://www.channel4.com/news/factcheck/factcheck-hamas-civilians-human-shields
In fact, and quite ironically, it could only make sense to say “Hamas sees the death of its civilians as a valid tactic” if Israel had ignored the bare-chested defenders and destroyed the buildings anyway. Which, after 10/7, Israel of course began doing with unearned impunity.
There weren’t any Hamas military bases under hospitals. That wasn’t true. This genocide has got nothing to do with religion, anymore that Apartheid South Africa was to do with the Dutch. Reformed church. I really think you need to read more about the history of the Middle East, and maybe much more about the very long Jewish/ Muslim history, particularly the joint diasporas and collective programs meted out against both by the Europeans from the dark-middle ages. Also, I ‘d like to note, for reference, that your genetic biology as a Russian Jew is far closer to mine (Danish French) than it is to anyone whose roots are in ancient Israel/Palestine/Judea.
Short and sweet!! "Palestinians" (brackets because all who lived in that area, Jews, Arabs, etc., were all Palestinians), have been dehumanized by their own people. Egypt did adopt them when KIng Farouk told them to leave their homes with the promise they will return when the Jews are dead. Same with Syria, Lebanon, Jordan. Secondly, their leadership was offered a state 4 times and each time it was refused. These Arabs have been wondering around the area for year previously, and yet archeologists have found no traces of Arabic, Islamic life. It anyone has dehumanized them it is the UN, UNRWA telling them that they are refugees for eternity. That really make a person feel great!!!! Anyone who makes an excuse of any kind for the massacres on October 7, 2023 has no heart, and certainly no brain!
I love what you wrote, not because I agree with your every interpretation of facts, but because your ideas are intelligent and humorous and appear to be based on reality without defaulting to demagoguery. Great job!
I agree with Daniel. Always a pleasure to read good writing even if I disagree with some of the positions. Especially if I do, actually. It’s important to be challenged.
I don't think your post added much to the conversation on this issue. First off, it was a bit all over the place in tone, substance, and structure. A lot of your arguments I heard before and nothing new was added to make the argument more compelling than when others make it. The best part to me was the genuine human part of your story with your parents, you seeing their thoughts on anti-semitism one way and then that changing after Oct. 7th. I think a human and personal story about the emotional impact of that violence and the changing political landscape it ignited, and how that affected you, would have been more compelling. I think a lot on the left don't understand the emotional and psychological impact of Oct. 7th so I think that would have been valuable to add to the conversation. I've seen you in some dope intellectual knife fights but this is one of the toughest intellectual sword fights possible right now and I don't think you were the samurai we needed on this one.
Oh I see. You want to sidestep the conversation that you jumped into - regarding the claim that 'Zionism is the reason no two state solution has come to pass', which I identified as ahistorical and inaccurate, and somehow I'm the one ignoring the argument.
So, okay, let's dig into some red herring. I love herring, being Jewish and all.
Fact: the IDF goes to greater lengths to avoid civilian casualties than any military, ever, in recorded history. Fact: Every credible military analyst to examine the conflict thus far has acknowledged the above, including senior US military officials, British, and others in NATO, even from nations which do not support Israel. Fact: Hamas strategy and policy centers around intentionally placing it's civilian populace into harms way, prioritizing casualty porn over human life. Fact: despite this barbaric disregard for the well being of residents of Gaza from their own psychotic government, the IDF has managed to keep the ratio of civilian to military casualties among the lowest in any conflict in the modern era. Fact: if Hamas actually had the slightest shred of concern for the people of Gaza, they could have participated in good faith in the Doha negotiations and released the hostages they've held for over a year... But instead choose instead, each day, to keep prosecuting the war they started, at great cost to both combatant nations.
My, that is some tasty herring, isn't it?
but by all means please continue calling me names, that will certainly convince me of the validity of your position.
On October 7, the Hamas terrorists were armed, the Israelis massacred were defenseless. The unanswered question is why did Israel disarm its citizens most of whom are IDF veterans and leave them vulnerable to mass rape and murder by Hamas? An incredibly stupid decision and the Israeli government is clearly culpable. Every Jewish family in Israel (and the US) should have a 9 mm handgun, an AR15 rifle and plenty of ammunition for both. Every adult and teenage member of the family should be proficient in their use. Every adult should carry their concealed handgun at all times. I live in relatively peaceful America and I do. Have anti-gun Jewish politicians in both countries learned nothing from the Holocaust and the latest slaughter? Isn’t it time for the Jewish people to tell them to go fuck themselves?
i can see how people might arrive to this conclusion out of fear, but i'm not sure this would be the best thing for a cultural ethos. and a bunch of drunk teenagers being strapped at a music festival could have its downfalls...
Sophie: You deal with that issue the same way you deal with drunk driving. You designate volunteers to stay sober and alert to potential problems. These folks lived a few miles from murderous Hamas for Christ’s sake.
The only unanswered question that matters is the one every human must ask when confronted with a defense of this genocide: are you truly an inhuman monster or are you just an ignorant bigot?
I appreciate and thank you for the insight into the evolution of your connection with Judaism and, to a lesser extent, Israel.
I remember going on birthright in 2011, in my early twenties, and hearing the arguments that Israel was the only true safe place for Jews, and -at the time- thinking them nonsensical. I'm American, that could never happen here, etc.
Now, a decade later, it makes much more sense. Israel is the geopolitical fire extinguisher for Diaspora Jewry - we desperately want not to need it, but we should understand the folly of not having it. And witnessing the events transpiring in the streets of Europe, and even the rhetoric being used here in the US, I find myself glancing more and more frequently to the fire extinguisher mounted on the wall.
Also, the image of the geese in the bar was *chef's kiss*.
You have it completely backwards: Israel is origin of most contemporary antisemitism. In fact, most of what is cynically called antisemitism is genuiny nothing more than opposition to Israel.
You claim diaspora Jewry “desperately want not to need” Israel. Speak for yourself: Israel exists ONLY because of Zionist zealots who not only wanted it but believed they already held the deed, in the form of the Torah. Zionism is the reason no two-state solution has come to pass.
This is a thoroughly ahistorical take that both denies Palestinian agency and ignores decades of the historical record, but I suppose it's easier for you to bop around sub stack copy pasting canned misrepresentations from a word document than engaging in good faith discussion. May I suggest going back to Twitter where this level of discourse belongs?
Was there an argument there? It reads to me like an unhinged screed, which somehow leaves out a history of Israeli peace offerings that were roundly rejected by Arafat over the span of several decades. If someone is operating on a completely different - and ahistorical - set of facts, there's really no point in debating conclusions.
Only just got around to this now but gladly ate it up in one sitting. I'd read basically anything in this "genre", though this was especially funny and frenetic. My only feedback (feel free to not care) is that I think the long anti-Trump paragraph near the end could have been more effective if it was much shorter; though I wouldn't have been able to write the paragraphs worth keeping, so it's a fair trade.
This is kind of out-there, but you should consider submitting an article to Times of Israel. They sometimes publish opinion pieces that are higher on whimsy, but their contributors are painfully untalented, and I'm sure you could get a slightly more restrained piece published.
Ahhh thank you! I think in retrospect I would get rid of the whole trump/election part because it doesn’t age well considering it’s no longer relevant after the election.
And Times of Israel sounds like a really good idea. I’ll check it out. I might even submit this, if it fits the criteria!
Also worth noting that on 10/7, Israel killed 1,609 and captured ~200, while Hamas killed 1,180 and captured 251. That's right: Israel did more killing on October 7th than Hamas did—and Israel also killed some of its own, both accidentally and deliberately. How is that like 9/11?
I think in the future there is a strong likelihood we will see the development of a historical record showing that Israel had actionable intelligence but failed to act, similar to Gordon Prange's excellent body of work showing how FDR allowed Pearl Harbor. However, just as that line of scholarship did not negate the fact that Japan did, indeed, bomb Pearl Harbor, conclusive evidence that netanyahu's government knew of the impending threat will not negate the fact that Hamas did, in fact, slaughter 1500 Israeli civilians that day.
Put simply, failure to mitigate harm does not excuse the harm itself.
It would be worse than that, actually. Hamas could not have known about the festival because it was continued an extra day at the last minute. So... Israel knew before Hamas?
Literally took five seconds of Googling to prove this is nonsense, but I suppose once you're that deep in conspiracy theory and hatred, we can't reasonably expect you to do any fact checking.
I disagree with a good part of the vision (specifically the illegitimisation of the Palestinian movement paired with a convenient silence on the extent of Israel’s war crimes), but it was just written in such an engaging, dark, and intriguing way I found myself making it to the end. Good job on that, at least!
I must say this is perhaps one of the best pieces of writing I’ve seen. Your use of language is marvelous, the arguments you craft are well supported, your humor is fresh and the setup is nothing short of spectacular. I plan to re-read this again and if you have any resources for how you became such a fantastic writer please send them to me.
However, you miss the end dearly. What you fail to see is that the problems you address in your essay have metastasized from liberalism — or really postmodernism masquerading as liberalism. This makes voting for liberal candidates nausea inducing.
Unfortunately the left has eaten its own tail, specifically around policies of mass immigration — at least in Europe have set the stage for the complete collapse of their liberal democracies. What is to come when large swaths of a population are in support of Islamism? Islamic parties who use the tools of democracy against itself. It likely the window for a soft landing has passed.
This is not about supporting Islamicism or being antisemitic; it's about opposing genocide. Why insult your readers’ intelligence by pretending otherwise?
I see politics less as individuals with agendas, and more as disembodied forces. The doctrine of intersectionalism necessarily has to lead to left wing support of Palestine, even to the point of open endorsement of rape, since they are the oppressed and Israel is the oppressor, it is entirely ideologically consistent for a postmodern dogma that does not know the concept of good and evil. And since this is obviously disfunctional, it is bound to fail and collapse, as it is doing, rapidly. I think the fundamental problem of the left is as follows: It has realised that intersectionalism and oppression and privilege is a terrible lense to view the world through, and has pivoted away from it, but it has nothing to pivot to, so the left stays in limbo, believing in nothing except being not the right wing, as can be seen impressively with Kamala Harris not really having any coherent position, apart from calling Trump a lunatic and a dictator as much as possible. Left wing ideology has a power vacuum, with no coherent successor to oppression economics in sight, and as such a new dogma needs to be forged, for you can't rule from an empty throne.
I agree with your take on intersectionality but I don’t think it’s entirely true that the left no longer has a coherent position. Kamala/the democrats have actual policy proposals while the right has “concepts of a plan”.
At least from the outside (I am not even an American cititzen) it looks like the republicans have a much more coherent vision of America. They are White Hierarch Individualist Americans:
But I guess having the more coherent vision of the future is what both parties are trying to sell to the public. In a few weeks we will know who will have succeeded.
Hmm, it seems to me that republicans aren’t running under any policy, just being the party of trump. If trump left the republicans and started his own party, they would all follow him.
I would be really interested in seeing what would happen if there was a Republican schism, if JD Vance took the other side of Trump. JD Vance is becoming super popular, with his Joe Rogan interview at 13 Million Views after 3 days, compared to Trumps 44 Million after 11 days. He used to be a nobody a few weeks ago. The Vice Presidential debate is full on comments saying they want to see Waltz vs Vance run, with a lot more outright calls for Vance as president.
Also Vance is Peter Thiel's man, and as thus stands for the Silicon Valley Neo-Republicans like Elon Musk. I have got the feeling that most of the US-techsector technocrats are republicans by now, with Zuckerberg calling Trump badass and Bezos pulling the Kamala vote recommendation from his newspaper.
From a democratic lense the Republicans look like the Trump party, because Trump is all Kamala Harris ever talks about, but inside the party a new power centre is forming around Vance, Thiel, Musk.
I'm not sure how to go about responding to this. While there are many things I agree with, I actually am very firmly with Palestine on this, as a matter of ethics, not that I agree in any way with Islamic (or Jewish, for that matter) ideas about how society should be run. This is despite my religious upbringing which instilled from a very young age nothing less than the idea that Palestine deserved Biblical retribution. It seems that my parents and extended family, who are still lamenting over the death of Rhodesia, are getting their wish. I don't want to be harsh, Sophie, because I respect you as a person and understand where you are coming from as far as the antisemitism that has definitely ramped up lately, but, aside from the joke, I feel like I've read this same essay about a dozen times over the past year alone.
But, at the end of the day, Palestinians have been dehumanized by Israel, and this is far more than merely a war between Israel and Hamas. Even Desmond Tutu, after traveling there, called the apartheid perpetuated by Israel worse than what happened in South Africa. Zeteo recently put out a documentary called Israel's Reel Extremism which shows how this is perpetuated by the state run media. While I also condemn Hamas, the thing is, every tactic that Hamas is accused of, such as planting their military bases deeply within civilian infrastructure, using human shields and indiscriminately targeting civilians, lying about numbers etc, Israel also does that, and on a grander scale. There is so much I could specifically get into, but I would probably need an entire essay myself, especially to cover the rest of the situation in the Middle East.
Hey Dan, thanks for respectfully critiquing my position. I will however have to push back against "every tactic that Hamas is accused of, such as planting their military bases deeply within civilian infrastructure, using human shields and indiscriminately targeting civilians, lying about numbers etc, Israel also does that, and on a grander scale." Really? What military bases does Israel plant deep within civilian structures that is on a 'grander scale' than the largest hospital in the area? That's like if we kept Fort Liberty in a tunnel under the Mayo Clinic. You can certainly call Israel out for wrongdoings, but saying that they are not only moral equivalents to Hamas but actually worse, cannot be substantiated by any data. But if you ever do want to write an essay on the subject, I would really look forward to reading it from a good faith perspective!
The relative number of people each side has killed should be data enough for the moral claim, as well as who wields the power in this situation. There is no ideological hijacking here. It is not against any progressive values as you bizarrely claim to want to protect an oppressed group from an oppressor, even if we disagree with the actions of the oppressed. There is no calculus on this that can make this take make any sense.
From Zeteo, which is one of the few media orgs with, and listening to, reporters on the ground during this conflict, despite how many journalists the IDF has killed (not by accident):
"Ironically, Israel today has more than 53 buildings, including schools, hospitals, and synagogues, decorated with plaques commemorating how Zionist militias used them to hide combatants and weapons until 1948. The Israelis have used UN schools in Gaza as bases to conceal soldiers and tanks, launch sniper attacks, and detain and interrogate Palestinian civilians. They have also used schools in the Israeli cities of Sderot and Sha’ar HaNegev since Oct. 7 as military bases to store weapons and accommodate soldiers.
"In Gaza, Israel has itself engaged extensively in actual human shielding since Oct. 7, including dressing Gazan detainees in Israeli uniforms and forcing them against their will to inspect tunnels and potential boobytraps. Haaretz cites one Israeli soldier whose superiors justified this practice by pointing out that too many dogs of the Oketz canine unit were getting wounded or killed. Such a situation has popularized the phrase 'every accusation is a confession.'"
Also, "When Israel bombed Gaza’s Taba’een school in August, killing more than 100 Palestinians, many of whom were hacked into scattered pieces, the Israeli military again called all civilian victims “human shields” and said without evidence that it targeted Hamas members at the school – a claim that was refuted. The twisted logic here is that the mere presence of alleged Hamas members, even if they were there as displaced refugees themselves, renders everyone in that overcrowded school a legitimate target." https://zeteo.com/p/the-myth-of-human-shields-israel-gaza
Now, it is also clear that the IDF does not give a damn if it massacres civilians as collateral, given they deliberately avoid using precision weapons and opt for those almost designed to be as messy as possible.
They also use infrastructure as weapons, having cut power and supplies, and are even trying to stop any aid getting in for extremely spurious reasons, like pretending everything that could possibly get in can be used as a weapon by Hamas, including insulin shots, or that all of the aid is going to Hamas etc, when every independent org on earth is basically calling out their BS on this and saying the conditions on the Gaza Strip are some of the worst on earth.
No, this is ridiculous. It's not just a both sides thing. The oppression of Palestinians at the hands of Israel has been going on for decades, and one of the saddest parts about it is that for a time, they had been so pushed back and so dehumanized that the average Israeli and the average Jew forgot all about them, as the Israeli government ignored their pleas, basically doing whatever they wanted without anyone noticing. And then a terrorist attack happened, and suddenly everyone woke up. But of course, instead of a targeted operation, Israel decided "alright, let's just annihilate this entire population and pretend we are just defending ourselves." It's basically Oct 7 vs an entire year of a relentless onslaught as revenge. It's insulting that people have ended up buying into their propaganda, despite the fact that they aren't even good at it.
I'm not even going to get into the whole issue of whether Israel was founded on stolen land, on which you've defended them here, and I think misguidedly. It doesn't really matter as far as the actual human rights violations they've perpetrated in the region since.
That one side is better at protecting ita civilians, and the other sees the death of its civilians as a valid tactic, including and I quote "we encourage our civilians to protecting our (Hamas) buildings with their bare chests against Israeli warplanes" doesn't in any way make the side with more casualties more righteous. In fact, in Ukraine /Russia war, Russia reportedly sustained way more casualties. And yet, we know who is the more righteous, don't we? The stronger military isn't always wrong, you know.
Well said, Moshe
Funny how Israel were careless with the lives of the more left wing kibutzniks and Nova “peace” lovers and even gunned or grenaded dozens of them on October 7th aka the Hannibal directive. I wonder if they would have been so careless with repeated reports of a planned military assault on the illegal settlers in the West Bank. I think not. It would have drawn too much attention on the illegality of those settlements & their atrocities against Palestinians. No matter. Now we all know. H are probably doing an Algeria- that’s the kind of tactic less powerful groups who fiercely love their land adopt. And it’s working- most of the world’s citizens are repulsed by you, & in the medium term, Israel in its current form will cease to exist.But in this unequal “war”, I’ve yet to hear of reliable reports of H deliberately or mistakenly killing dozens of its own citizens. That’s Israel’s role.
Well argued. You left out that Mossad HQ is smack bang in the middle of Tel Aviv. If one were to believe every lie the IDF have claimed about Hamas operating under hospitals and schools, they are basically saying every Gazan is Hamas I lose count of how many times they have attacked Al Shifa hospital, but the second last time Hamas employees ( NOT militants) were gathering to receive their pay, and that is whom they massacred en masse. H are like ghosts, when the dust settles, we’ll have it confirmed that the IDF have killed way less Hamas militants than they claim, if you are going to make the claim that every Gazan male is a potential Hamas militant, then half of the I670 odd Israeli civilian victims of Oct 7 who were actually off duty reservists or off duty active duty IDF are anything but “innocent”. It is part and parcel of the de-humanising process: Gazan children are just future terrorists, whereas the active duty IDF young women captured on Oct 7 were “ innocent girls” who play the viiolin etc. I witnessed the racism in Israel against non Jews 40 years ago; it has only got worse and more overt in recent years; and it’s coming into full view in this Genocide.
Your quote is out of context and disingenuous. The buildings under discussion were not Hamas installations (as you parenthetically claim) but Palestian homes:
“The policy of people confronting the Israeli warplanes with their bare chests in order to protect their homes has proven effective against the occupation… we in Hamas call upon our people to adopt this policy in order to protect the Palestinian homes.” https://www.channel4.com/news/factcheck/factcheck-hamas-civilians-human-shields
In fact, and quite ironically, it could only make sense to say “Hamas sees the death of its civilians as a valid tactic” if Israel had ignored the bare-chested defenders and destroyed the buildings anyway. Which, after 10/7, Israel of course began doing with unearned impunity.
There weren’t any Hamas military bases under hospitals. That wasn’t true. This genocide has got nothing to do with religion, anymore that Apartheid South Africa was to do with the Dutch. Reformed church. I really think you need to read more about the history of the Middle East, and maybe much more about the very long Jewish/ Muslim history, particularly the joint diasporas and collective programs meted out against both by the Europeans from the dark-middle ages. Also, I ‘d like to note, for reference, that your genetic biology as a Russian Jew is far closer to mine (Danish French) than it is to anyone whose roots are in ancient Israel/Palestine/Judea.
Short and sweet!! "Palestinians" (brackets because all who lived in that area, Jews, Arabs, etc., were all Palestinians), have been dehumanized by their own people. Egypt did adopt them when KIng Farouk told them to leave their homes with the promise they will return when the Jews are dead. Same with Syria, Lebanon, Jordan. Secondly, their leadership was offered a state 4 times and each time it was refused. These Arabs have been wondering around the area for year previously, and yet archeologists have found no traces of Arabic, Islamic life. It anyone has dehumanized them it is the UN, UNRWA telling them that they are refugees for eternity. That really make a person feel great!!!! Anyone who makes an excuse of any kind for the massacres on October 7, 2023 has no heart, and certainly no brain!
I love what you wrote, not because I agree with your every interpretation of facts, but because your ideas are intelligent and humorous and appear to be based on reality without defaulting to demagoguery. Great job!
Thanks Daniel, I think you’re my first positive comment on this post!
Well that’s because most people feel that attacking their cherished beliefs is the same thing as attacking them.
I agree with Daniel. Always a pleasure to read good writing even if I disagree with some of the positions. Especially if I do, actually. It’s important to be challenged.
Thanks Robert! <3
I don't think your post added much to the conversation on this issue. First off, it was a bit all over the place in tone, substance, and structure. A lot of your arguments I heard before and nothing new was added to make the argument more compelling than when others make it. The best part to me was the genuine human part of your story with your parents, you seeing their thoughts on anti-semitism one way and then that changing after Oct. 7th. I think a human and personal story about the emotional impact of that violence and the changing political landscape it ignited, and how that affected you, would have been more compelling. I think a lot on the left don't understand the emotional and psychological impact of Oct. 7th so I think that would have been valuable to add to the conversation. I've seen you in some dope intellectual knife fights but this is one of the toughest intellectual sword fights possible right now and I don't think you were the samurai we needed on this one.
Ah well you win some you lose some 🤷♀️ I’ll try to impress you more on my next post!
I appreciate hearing your pov, regardless. Gaarrrllll, impressing yourself gonna be tough enough work, don't bring me into it.
Oh I see. You want to sidestep the conversation that you jumped into - regarding the claim that 'Zionism is the reason no two state solution has come to pass', which I identified as ahistorical and inaccurate, and somehow I'm the one ignoring the argument.
So, okay, let's dig into some red herring. I love herring, being Jewish and all.
Fact: the IDF goes to greater lengths to avoid civilian casualties than any military, ever, in recorded history. Fact: Every credible military analyst to examine the conflict thus far has acknowledged the above, including senior US military officials, British, and others in NATO, even from nations which do not support Israel. Fact: Hamas strategy and policy centers around intentionally placing it's civilian populace into harms way, prioritizing casualty porn over human life. Fact: despite this barbaric disregard for the well being of residents of Gaza from their own psychotic government, the IDF has managed to keep the ratio of civilian to military casualties among the lowest in any conflict in the modern era. Fact: if Hamas actually had the slightest shred of concern for the people of Gaza, they could have participated in good faith in the Doha negotiations and released the hostages they've held for over a year... But instead choose instead, each day, to keep prosecuting the war they started, at great cost to both combatant nations.
My, that is some tasty herring, isn't it?
but by all means please continue calling me names, that will certainly convince me of the validity of your position.
On October 7, the Hamas terrorists were armed, the Israelis massacred were defenseless. The unanswered question is why did Israel disarm its citizens most of whom are IDF veterans and leave them vulnerable to mass rape and murder by Hamas? An incredibly stupid decision and the Israeli government is clearly culpable. Every Jewish family in Israel (and the US) should have a 9 mm handgun, an AR15 rifle and plenty of ammunition for both. Every adult and teenage member of the family should be proficient in their use. Every adult should carry their concealed handgun at all times. I live in relatively peaceful America and I do. Have anti-gun Jewish politicians in both countries learned nothing from the Holocaust and the latest slaughter? Isn’t it time for the Jewish people to tell them to go fuck themselves?
XXX
Thankfully the Israeli government realized their folly and drastically loosened firearms regulations after 10/7.
i can see how people might arrive to this conclusion out of fear, but i'm not sure this would be the best thing for a cultural ethos. and a bunch of drunk teenagers being strapped at a music festival could have its downfalls...
Sophie: You deal with that issue the same way you deal with drunk driving. You designate volunteers to stay sober and alert to potential problems. These folks lived a few miles from murderous Hamas for Christ’s sake.
Israel knew the festival was a target before Hamas did, which is kinda strange...
https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2023-12-05/ty-article/.premium/despite-intel-warnings-about-a-hamas-attack-the-army-didnt-evacuate-the-nova-festival/0000018c-3993-dc03-a9ec-3dfb2cda0000
https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2023-11-18/ty-article/.premium/israeli-security-establishment-hamas-likely-didnt-have-prior-knowledge-of-nova-festival/0000018b-e2ee-d168-a3ef-f7fe8ca20000
The only unanswered question that matters is the one every human must ask when confronted with a defense of this genocide: are you truly an inhuman monster or are you just an ignorant bigot?
I appreciate and thank you for the insight into the evolution of your connection with Judaism and, to a lesser extent, Israel.
I remember going on birthright in 2011, in my early twenties, and hearing the arguments that Israel was the only true safe place for Jews, and -at the time- thinking them nonsensical. I'm American, that could never happen here, etc.
Now, a decade later, it makes much more sense. Israel is the geopolitical fire extinguisher for Diaspora Jewry - we desperately want not to need it, but we should understand the folly of not having it. And witnessing the events transpiring in the streets of Europe, and even the rhetoric being used here in the US, I find myself glancing more and more frequently to the fire extinguisher mounted on the wall.
Also, the image of the geese in the bar was *chef's kiss*.
Thank you Jacob!
You have it completely backwards: Israel is origin of most contemporary antisemitism. In fact, most of what is cynically called antisemitism is genuiny nothing more than opposition to Israel.
You claim diaspora Jewry “desperately want not to need” Israel. Speak for yourself: Israel exists ONLY because of Zionist zealots who not only wanted it but believed they already held the deed, in the form of the Torah. Zionism is the reason no two-state solution has come to pass.
This is a thoroughly ahistorical take that both denies Palestinian agency and ignores decades of the historical record, but I suppose it's easier for you to bop around sub stack copy pasting canned misrepresentations from a word document than engaging in good faith discussion. May I suggest going back to Twitter where this level of discourse belongs?
You are the one ignoring his argument, you lunatic.
Was there an argument there? It reads to me like an unhinged screed, which somehow leaves out a history of Israeli peace offerings that were roundly rejected by Arafat over the span of several decades. If someone is operating on a completely different - and ahistorical - set of facts, there's really no point in debating conclusions.
The fact that Israel is currently mass slaughtering civilians and yet you still won’t consider that you might be wrong is why you are a lunatic.
Obviously, he does not believe Israel are "mass slaughtering civilians". Which is proven by the Terrorist/Civilian ratio. Numbers don't lie.
Lunacy is ignoring the facts and calling those that disagree with you a lunatic.
Sophie you are so goddamn hot with your writing and stuff thank you ☺️🙏🙏🙏
Thank you so much! ❤️
“Introducing my background these days seems to be met with an expectation of a ten page disclaimer and formal apology.”
LORD, is this not the truest thing ever said. It’s tough out here 😂
😂 I’m full Ashkenazi Jew, but I can see how my bio can be confusing. I meant if you’re a Muslim or Jew, that doesn’t matter — you’re all fans 🤣
Ohhh I’m so dumb. But full ashkanazi is rough too
Ooof saw on your profile you’re a jew/Muslim. You must be so loved and hated
Thank you for your context, clarity, and wit. So, Sophie, what now?
Now listen to the voiceover of my newest post! ✨
Only just got around to this now but gladly ate it up in one sitting. I'd read basically anything in this "genre", though this was especially funny and frenetic. My only feedback (feel free to not care) is that I think the long anti-Trump paragraph near the end could have been more effective if it was much shorter; though I wouldn't have been able to write the paragraphs worth keeping, so it's a fair trade.
This is kind of out-there, but you should consider submitting an article to Times of Israel. They sometimes publish opinion pieces that are higher on whimsy, but their contributors are painfully untalented, and I'm sure you could get a slightly more restrained piece published.
Ahhh thank you! I think in retrospect I would get rid of the whole trump/election part because it doesn’t age well considering it’s no longer relevant after the election.
And Times of Israel sounds like a really good idea. I’ll check it out. I might even submit this, if it fits the criteria!
Where were the IDF?
🤔
Yeah their response was admittedly very unorganized. But it was also an unprecedented incident— their 9/11
And just like 9/11, there is good evidence the tragedy was allowed to happen so that public outrage could be leveraged into justification for the disproportionate destruction. https://www.thetimes.com/world/middle-east/article/israel-nova-music-festival-shin-bet-hamas-massacre-wv7qs3cww
Also worth noting that on 10/7, Israel killed 1,609 and captured ~200, while Hamas killed 1,180 and captured 251. That's right: Israel did more killing on October 7th than Hamas did—and Israel also killed some of its own, both accidentally and deliberately. How is that like 9/11?
I think in the future there is a strong likelihood we will see the development of a historical record showing that Israel had actionable intelligence but failed to act, similar to Gordon Prange's excellent body of work showing how FDR allowed Pearl Harbor. However, just as that line of scholarship did not negate the fact that Japan did, indeed, bomb Pearl Harbor, conclusive evidence that netanyahu's government knew of the impending threat will not negate the fact that Hamas did, in fact, slaughter 1500 Israeli civilians that day.
Put simply, failure to mitigate harm does not excuse the harm itself.
It would be worse than that, actually. Hamas could not have known about the festival because it was continued an extra day at the last minute. So... Israel knew before Hamas?
Literally took five seconds of Googling to prove this is nonsense, but I suppose once you're that deep in conspiracy theory and hatred, we can't reasonably expect you to do any fact checking.
https://www.eventer.co.il/event/novaparalellotranslate/wCqCL
I disagree with a good part of the vision (specifically the illegitimisation of the Palestinian movement paired with a convenient silence on the extent of Israel’s war crimes), but it was just written in such an engaging, dark, and intriguing way I found myself making it to the end. Good job on that, at least!
Thank you so much! It actually means a lot more that you liked my writing knowing you disagreed with my opinions 🖤
I must say this is perhaps one of the best pieces of writing I’ve seen. Your use of language is marvelous, the arguments you craft are well supported, your humor is fresh and the setup is nothing short of spectacular. I plan to re-read this again and if you have any resources for how you became such a fantastic writer please send them to me.
However, you miss the end dearly. What you fail to see is that the problems you address in your essay have metastasized from liberalism — or really postmodernism masquerading as liberalism. This makes voting for liberal candidates nausea inducing.
Unfortunately the left has eaten its own tail, specifically around policies of mass immigration — at least in Europe have set the stage for the complete collapse of their liberal democracies. What is to come when large swaths of a population are in support of Islamism? Islamic parties who use the tools of democracy against itself. It likely the window for a soft landing has passed.
Ahhh that’s so kind and of you to say, I’m flattered 🥺
This is not about supporting Islamicism or being antisemitic; it's about opposing genocide. Why insult your readers’ intelligence by pretending otherwise?
That setup.
Great read. I don't agree with everything presented, but very engaging, enough to trigger a lil introspection and questioning. Well done/said!
Thank you! If i triggered some introspection, I achieved my goal!
I see politics less as individuals with agendas, and more as disembodied forces. The doctrine of intersectionalism necessarily has to lead to left wing support of Palestine, even to the point of open endorsement of rape, since they are the oppressed and Israel is the oppressor, it is entirely ideologically consistent for a postmodern dogma that does not know the concept of good and evil. And since this is obviously disfunctional, it is bound to fail and collapse, as it is doing, rapidly. I think the fundamental problem of the left is as follows: It has realised that intersectionalism and oppression and privilege is a terrible lense to view the world through, and has pivoted away from it, but it has nothing to pivot to, so the left stays in limbo, believing in nothing except being not the right wing, as can be seen impressively with Kamala Harris not really having any coherent position, apart from calling Trump a lunatic and a dictator as much as possible. Left wing ideology has a power vacuum, with no coherent successor to oppression economics in sight, and as such a new dogma needs to be forged, for you can't rule from an empty throne.
I agree with your take on intersectionality but I don’t think it’s entirely true that the left no longer has a coherent position. Kamala/the democrats have actual policy proposals while the right has “concepts of a plan”.
At least from the outside (I am not even an American cititzen) it looks like the republicans have a much more coherent vision of America. They are White Hierarch Individualist Americans:
https://nitter.poast.org/jeremykauffman/status/1770809782468796705
But I guess having the more coherent vision of the future is what both parties are trying to sell to the public. In a few weeks we will know who will have succeeded.
Hmm, it seems to me that republicans aren’t running under any policy, just being the party of trump. If trump left the republicans and started his own party, they would all follow him.
I would be really interested in seeing what would happen if there was a Republican schism, if JD Vance took the other side of Trump. JD Vance is becoming super popular, with his Joe Rogan interview at 13 Million Views after 3 days, compared to Trumps 44 Million after 11 days. He used to be a nobody a few weeks ago. The Vice Presidential debate is full on comments saying they want to see Waltz vs Vance run, with a lot more outright calls for Vance as president.
Also Vance is Peter Thiel's man, and as thus stands for the Silicon Valley Neo-Republicans like Elon Musk. I have got the feeling that most of the US-techsector technocrats are republicans by now, with Zuckerberg calling Trump badass and Bezos pulling the Kamala vote recommendation from his newspaper.
From a democratic lense the Republicans look like the Trump party, because Trump is all Kamala Harris ever talks about, but inside the party a new power centre is forming around Vance, Thiel, Musk.