Agreed. It’s also frustrating that the labeling of anything anti-Zionist as anti-Semitism just gives actual anti-Semites the opportunity to claim their actual anti-Semitism is anything but.
I will never fault someone for standing up for their people. In fact, one has to admire the fact that this person put their money (and reputation) where their mouth is. We strongly disagree on the matter, but antisemitism has nothing to do with it.
A question, for me, is where is the same pressure from other players? Where are the mega rich Arabs and Muslims pulling their funding because somebody didn’t put out a pro-Palestine message. Step up!
Where are the mega rich Arabs and Muslims pulling their funding because somebody didn’t put out a pro-Palestine message.
I think you might be a little confused about the current geopolitics and investment in the area. This flared up in part because SA was giving up on the Palestinians and moving towards accepting a single state under Israeli rule. That’s where most of the local money and power resides and it’s not really aligned with Palestinians.
On the other hand Iran is Palestine’s ally and they have put their limited money where their mouth us, up to the point of threatening Israel with an invasion if they do not control their hostilities. Afaik they don’t have much investment in Israel and allies to pull out, so threats of military intervention are the tactic that is available to them. The vast majority of investment that exists in order to be pulled in the first place, is invested in Israel. (Afghanistan is a wasteland now but iirc they had also people wanting to travel to defend Gaza fwiw.)
The pro-Palestinians basically are pulling out all of the stops, it’s just that the pieces on the board are overwhelmingly skewed against them. And the actions they have available are not going to be viewed favorably by citizens of the hegemonic countries (5eyes, etc.) because those actions threaten the relatively unipolar world order. Those actions also won’t be heavily reported on in countries aligned with Israel - unless the purpose is to wrap it in a message that drives jingoism - because it portrays weakness and discrepancies with the official narrative on the region (which is aligned with US-ally SA’s campaign for a single state).
Looking at other regional stakeholders:
Lebanon isn’t controlled by the state much right now, but that state wasn’t aligned with Palestine because the government was set up to split the local religions and the final design gave an advantage to the Christians. Waves of left-wing Palestinian refugees from conflict in the south eventually changed the demographics. The West-aligned Christian leaders decided they were a political threat and hostilities broke out, the state received military support from the US which suppressed the resistance for a time, but the situation didn’t really change and there have been various outbreaks since. The tensions remain.
Jordan allied with displaced Palestinian militants at one point to fight Israel. After the conflict’s resolution, tension grew because the Palestinians were left-wing and Jordan is a monarchy ruled by a royal family. Jordan saw their ideology as a political threat and started bombing their refugee camps, and they Palestinians mobilized in response against the state.
It’s probably worth mentioning that Palestinian organizations were communist during the Cold War - they had a lot of enemies. It’s my opinion that the current narrative on Palestine in terms of geopolitics is in many ways a continuation of Cold War rhetoric and agendas.
But the secular element was defeated in elections by Israel-supported Hamas, and now there is a more theological aspect driving the resistance. At one point their official stance was, imo, genocidal - that language was relaxed a few years after the elections and it is now officially a more territorial agenda. On the other hand, we all know how religious extremists act when not kept in check (although we should be careful not to be tricked into thinking all militants, including those giving orders, are religious extremists - reportedly Hamas’ campaign on the 7th was ordered to take hostages and not kill civilians, and that the IDF basically implemented the Hannibal Doctrine against it’s own civilians leading to significant friendly fire casualties [even as reported by an Israeli who was held hostage and later interviewed on Israeli news]; you can see how murky the waters get in a propaganda war).
Which is why I think the defeat of the secular element was monumentally disastrous for… just about every party on Earth.
There is also the Palestinian Authority that is somewhat competing with Hamas. They govern different territories but they have two radically different platforms, and as a result they are effectively competing to be recognized as the sole authority over Palestinian lands. The PA is very much trying to distance itself from Hamas right now. However there is a growing opinion that the PA were collaborators and handed Palestine to Israel/SA on a silver platter and paved the way for their own identity to be erased - with SA supporting a one-state solution giving weight to the opinion.
So… Palestine doesn’t have very many allies.
As a final note, you do you, but I wonder if you know much about Wexner - and if not, whether you would choose that particular verbiage if you were more familiar with the man. I’m not trying to invalidate your sentiment but I know I personally would have held onto it until a… less reprehensible individual was the subject of discussion.
(although we should be careful not to be tricked into thinking all militants, including those giving orders, are religious extremists - reportedly Hamas’ campaign on the 7th was ordered to take hostages and not kill civilians, and that the IDF basically implemented the Hannibal Doctrine against it’s own civilians leading to significant friendly fire casualties [even as reported by an Israeli who was held hostage and later interviewed on Israeli news]; you can see how murky the waters get in a propaganda war).
Can you share some of the reporting behind this use of ‘reportedly’. I have never seen this reported before though I am admittedly not reading everything.
Disclaimer: Regardless of how much is true or false, this article is what I would call propaganda. (Sometimes that’s all you have to work with.) I’m not sharing it under the pretenses that it is accurate or unbiased.
It’s difficult to tell if you believe it or not because you’ve referenced it within a larger point about how much confusion there is, but it seems like you believe it enough to repeat it. If so, what about the article makes you believe it or not?
I don’t think it is a matter of belief or lack of belief. I think the transcript given is exemplary for the kind of evidence that supports the Hamas’ narrative that their actions are being misportrayed. Much like the evidence for bombing of civilians and obstruction of aid efforts. However, that does not mean that Hamas’ narrative is true/not wildly exaggerated. The same is true in regards to the POTUS being duped by unsubstantiated reports of beheaded babies - it fuels the narrative that there is a propaganda campaign smearing Palestinians, whether or not that narrative is true.
On the other side of the partisanship divide you have verifiable evidence of hostage taking, indiscriminate rocket attacks, instances of murder of civilians, and other things that lend support to the narrative that Hamas is comprised entirely of illogical religious extremists.
We need to understand that we are looking at a field full of rational actors if we want to find resolution. We can’t drink our own koolaid and act as if narrative is truth, because the narratives do not align. Both narratives have evidence that support them, but fundamentally real events are occurring and those events are then being assigned to each narrative as convenient. And we cannot find the truth by simply piecing together true events from each narrative, because that leaves the story of the events that weren’t convenient to either party untold. This is the tightrope we must walk if we want to beneficially contribute to discussions imo. I mention the report because it contrasts many of our narratives, which have evidence supporting them; and yet we have transcript of an involved party from a side not expected to be sympathetic to to its opposition, that suddenly makes the situation look more complicated than initial reports (edit: for example I had originally been under the impression that they had taken the hostages to initiate a standoff/firefight). Rational actors are complicated and that’s the reality we have to deal with if we don’t want to just add more fuel to the fire.
Thank for taking the time to write these thoughts. I found them very insightful and thought-provoking. I asked some pretty mundane questions and you have rewarded me with high effort responses a lot to think about.
Thanks for the feedback. I understood why there might be a lot of curiosity behind your questions, and I wanted to convey my somewhat complicated thoughts earnestly. I was ready to be trolled to oblivion, but I didn’t want to just jump ahead and make an assumption about who was asking what questions and why. I’m glad I made that choice because you have participated in good faith, and it was helpful for me to write out these thoughts for my own inspection.
It’s sad that this type of comment can be and is often spun as “antisemitism”
Agreed. It’s also frustrating that the labeling of anything anti-Zionist as anti-Semitism just gives actual anti-Semites the opportunity to claim their actual anti-Semitism is anything but.
I will never fault someone for standing up for their people. In fact, one has to admire the fact that this person put their money (and reputation) where their mouth is. We strongly disagree on the matter, but antisemitism has nothing to do with it.
A question, for me, is where is the same pressure from other players? Where are the mega rich Arabs and Muslims pulling their funding because somebody didn’t put out a pro-Palestine message. Step up!
I think you might be a little confused about the current geopolitics and investment in the area. This flared up in part because SA was giving up on the Palestinians and moving towards accepting a single state under Israeli rule. That’s where most of the local money and power resides and it’s not really aligned with Palestinians.
On the other hand Iran is Palestine’s ally and they have put their limited money where their mouth us, up to the point of threatening Israel with an invasion if they do not control their hostilities. Afaik they don’t have much investment in Israel and allies to pull out, so threats of military intervention are the tactic that is available to them. The vast majority of investment that exists in order to be pulled in the first place, is invested in Israel. (Afghanistan is a wasteland now but iirc they had also people wanting to travel to defend Gaza fwiw.)
The pro-Palestinians basically are pulling out all of the stops, it’s just that the pieces on the board are overwhelmingly skewed against them. And the actions they have available are not going to be viewed favorably by citizens of the hegemonic countries (5eyes, etc.) because those actions threaten the relatively unipolar world order. Those actions also won’t be heavily reported on in countries aligned with Israel - unless the purpose is to wrap it in a message that drives jingoism - because it portrays weakness and discrepancies with the official narrative on the region (which is aligned with US-ally SA’s campaign for a single state).
Looking at other regional stakeholders:
Lebanon isn’t controlled by the state much right now, but that state wasn’t aligned with Palestine because the government was set up to split the local religions and the final design gave an advantage to the Christians. Waves of left-wing Palestinian refugees from conflict in the south eventually changed the demographics. The West-aligned Christian leaders decided they were a political threat and hostilities broke out, the state received military support from the US which suppressed the resistance for a time, but the situation didn’t really change and there have been various outbreaks since. The tensions remain.
Jordan allied with displaced Palestinian militants at one point to fight Israel. After the conflict’s resolution, tension grew because the Palestinians were left-wing and Jordan is a monarchy ruled by a royal family. Jordan saw their ideology as a political threat and started bombing their refugee camps, and they Palestinians mobilized in response against the state.
It’s probably worth mentioning that Palestinian organizations were communist during the Cold War - they had a lot of enemies. It’s my opinion that the current narrative on Palestine in terms of geopolitics is in many ways a continuation of Cold War rhetoric and agendas.
But the secular element was defeated in elections by Israel-supported Hamas, and now there is a more theological aspect driving the resistance. At one point their official stance was, imo, genocidal - that language was relaxed a few years after the elections and it is now officially a more territorial agenda. On the other hand, we all know how religious extremists act when not kept in check (although we should be careful not to be tricked into thinking all militants, including those giving orders, are religious extremists - reportedly Hamas’ campaign on the 7th was ordered to take hostages and not kill civilians, and that the IDF basically implemented the Hannibal Doctrine against it’s own civilians leading to significant friendly fire casualties [even as reported by an Israeli who was held hostage and later interviewed on Israeli news]; you can see how murky the waters get in a propaganda war).
Which is why I think the defeat of the secular element was monumentally disastrous for… just about every party on Earth.
There is also the Palestinian Authority that is somewhat competing with Hamas. They govern different territories but they have two radically different platforms, and as a result they are effectively competing to be recognized as the sole authority over Palestinian lands. The PA is very much trying to distance itself from Hamas right now. However there is a growing opinion that the PA were collaborators and handed Palestine to Israel/SA on a silver platter and paved the way for their own identity to be erased - with SA supporting a one-state solution giving weight to the opinion.
So… Palestine doesn’t have very many allies.
As a final note, you do you, but I wonder if you know much about Wexner - and if not, whether you would choose that particular verbiage if you were more familiar with the man. I’m not trying to invalidate your sentiment but I know I personally would have held onto it until a… less reprehensible individual was the subject of discussion.
Can you share some of the reporting behind this use of ‘reportedly’. I have never seen this reported before though I am admittedly not reading everything.
Yeah let me dig it up…
Here we go
Disclaimer: Regardless of how much is true or false, this article is what I would call propaganda. (Sometimes that’s all you have to work with.) I’m not sharing it under the pretenses that it is accurate or unbiased.
It’s difficult to tell if you believe it or not because you’ve referenced it within a larger point about how much confusion there is, but it seems like you believe it enough to repeat it. If so, what about the article makes you believe it or not?
I don’t think it is a matter of belief or lack of belief. I think the transcript given is exemplary for the kind of evidence that supports the Hamas’ narrative that their actions are being misportrayed. Much like the evidence for bombing of civilians and obstruction of aid efforts. However, that does not mean that Hamas’ narrative is true/not wildly exaggerated. The same is true in regards to the POTUS being duped by unsubstantiated reports of beheaded babies - it fuels the narrative that there is a propaganda campaign smearing Palestinians, whether or not that narrative is true.
On the other side of the partisanship divide you have verifiable evidence of hostage taking, indiscriminate rocket attacks, instances of murder of civilians, and other things that lend support to the narrative that Hamas is comprised entirely of illogical religious extremists.
We need to understand that we are looking at a field full of rational actors if we want to find resolution. We can’t drink our own koolaid and act as if narrative is truth, because the narratives do not align. Both narratives have evidence that support them, but fundamentally real events are occurring and those events are then being assigned to each narrative as convenient. And we cannot find the truth by simply piecing together true events from each narrative, because that leaves the story of the events that weren’t convenient to either party untold. This is the tightrope we must walk if we want to beneficially contribute to discussions imo. I mention the report because it contrasts many of our narratives, which have evidence supporting them; and yet we have transcript of an involved party from a side not expected to be sympathetic to to its opposition, that suddenly makes the situation look more complicated than initial reports (edit: for example I had originally been under the impression that they had taken the hostages to initiate a standoff/firefight). Rational actors are complicated and that’s the reality we have to deal with if we don’t want to just add more fuel to the fire.
Thank for taking the time to write these thoughts. I found them very insightful and thought-provoking. I asked some pretty mundane questions and you have rewarded me with high effort responses a lot to think about.
Thanks for the feedback. I understood why there might be a lot of curiosity behind your questions, and I wanted to convey my somewhat complicated thoughts earnestly. I was ready to be trolled to oblivion, but I didn’t want to just jump ahead and make an assumption about who was asking what questions and why. I’m glad I made that choice because you have participated in good faith, and it was helpful for me to write out these thoughts for my own inspection.
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I have no idea if this is true or not but it seems like a gross generalization.
Irrelevant. I’m talking about individuals not governments.
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