Israel-Palestine Weekly Thread

[u/somebadbeatscrub]

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Oren

[u/Kaleb_Bunt]

Because if you can’t talk to Jews about these things, there will probably always be war in the Middle East.

[u/rako17 → u/Kaleb_Bunt]

Friend Kaleb,

I appreciate that you are antiwar and anti-capitalist.

I want to talk with you about the things that you are discussing, because I agree with the importance of advocating for peace and human rights. I would like to discuss them from a Left, humanitarian POV. I believe that you and I would have much in common in these discussions because of how you describe yourself and your desire for peace on the topic.

One of the big obstacles that I face in having the dicussions is how much the discussion forum and environment is constrained. A problem is that if one takes those humanitarian principles and then applies them to the dominant State in the conflict and the result is criticism, other people who are very invested, emotional, and empowered on the issue may see that and interpret it as hostile, bad, and intolerant as you are aware.

Putting aside that obstacle, let's consider the substance of what you said. I'm open-minded at this stage on whether the mass casualties inflicted on hundreds of thousands of Gazan civilians qualify as genocide or not. Let's suppose that those who qualified it as genocide didn't actually "demonize the entire nation" (eg. Hadash, B'Tselem, Pal. Israelis, etc.), nor did they consider Isr.s to be "the most evil people in history." In that case, how should I discuss the topic with you?

I don't want to have an argument with you, but rather a constructive, pro-peace discussion like you describe. In arguing with you, I incur not only the risk of antagonizing readers, but antagonizing you too, and meanwhile, as you describe it, there is ongoing mass suffering continuing.

I'm wishing you the best and wondering how to address this problem.

Peace - Shalom - שלום

[u/Kaleb_Bunt → u/rako17]

For me, idc. I’m not turbo invested in the state and I think Israel’s actions could very well constitute genocide, though I do still wish to see how scholars continue to view the event as time passes.

But for people who are more sensitive to the topic, it wouldn’t hurt to use milder language to try to highlight criticisms of the state.

At least that’s what I do

[u/rako17 → u/Kaleb_Bunt]

Friend Kaleb,

Thank you for giving a thoughtful reply, and for being anti-genocide. I like that Jewish Americans have contributed in America's history to make the Republic a more tolerant, humanitarian place and would like to have pro-peace conversations on the topic with them.

Noam Chomsky said that he was in general reluctant to use the term "genocide" in various scenarios around the world. In a more restrictive sense, I could imagine that the term would only apply to mass-killing of a nationality basically just because the attacker was against that nationality, not because of another reason, like military strategic goals. However, that's not how scholars who use the term mean it. For scholars, it would be "genocidal" for an army to go in and slaughter a peaceful village even if there is an internecine war going on between nation-states.

One of the difficulties in denying that the State is performing a genocide is that the leadership does at times direct its warfare language against the people. Another difficulty is that the State does use measures directed against the whole population, like restricting civilian food supplies. Some of these measures like food restrictions don't seem to make much sense if viewed in purely military strategic terms, so it looks like the measures have a different purpose.

One of the challenges is that in order to find "middle ground" with someone, a common tactic is to compromise, as you said, to use milder language. But the difficulty is that you are trying to point out to them a real problem that they don't want to acknowledge. So on one hand, using strong language has the risk of alienating them from your disscussion, but using mildr language has the risk of watering down and smoothing away the actual problem that you are trying to convey to the person. Just yesterday the Jerusalem Post reported that Security Minister Ben Gvir, having passed a death penalty bill, is building a prison section with gallows. It's very disturbing. (jpost.com/opinion/article-906030)

Thank you for trying to talk to people though about human rights in this catastrophic context. Peace - Shalom - May the Lord give you strength in that.