[-] BraveSirZaphod@kbin.social 61 points 9 months ago

Within Israel, the vast majority of people don't particularly care about any kind of manifest destiny style reclamation of the West Bank or Gaza, and if that were the only issue, I genuinely don't think there would be a significant problem.

What essentially everyone does care about, however, is repeatedly having rockets lobbed at them. When people feel under threat, reason starts to fall away, people begin dehumanizing the "other", and you get the massive mess we have today. The fact of the matter is that Israel will never accept any situation where its people are under threat. No matter what you think about what acts are or aren't justified or your opinion on how various parts of the history played out, none of that changes this basic reality.

Palestine is not going to be able to militarily eradicate Israel. There is precisely zero chance that Israelis allow themselves to be subjected to a second diaspora and they'll fight to the death to prevent this, and that's to say nothing of external players like the United States. Again, whether you think this is a good thing or a bad thing, it is a true thing.

On the flip side, Israel is perfectly capable of essentially eradicating the Palestinians, though this would subject it to massive international condemnation that would also have huge economic impacts. You're already beginning to see whispers of this as the world increasingly sees Israel's response in Gaza as being excessively harsh. The most they could do is a slow and steady degradation of Palestinian society while encouraging them to "voluntarily" leave, which is arguably what the strategy has essentially been under Likud with settlements and the like.

So, what's required for a peaceful co-existence? Firstly, you need a mutual acknowledgement from both leaders (and also, a legitimate Palestinian leadership in the first place) that the other side exists and has a right to do so, ie, Palestinians giving up on the idea of eradicating Israel and Israelis giving up on the idea of fully annexing and ethnically cleaning Palestinian lands. This is not a trivial thing. The Israeli far-right, though they're not dominant, are growing and believe they have a divine right to the West Bank, with the Arabs being seen as little more than animals in the way. The extreme Palestinian side is that all Israelis are essentially foreign invaders and should be forcibly removed or killed. Both of these positions must be completely taken off the table.

Secondly, Israel will not engage unless it is confident that its security will not be threatened, which will in practice mean that Palestinian authorities must be de-militarized beyond what's necessary for basic local law enforcement. Again, this might seem unfair, and hell, it probably is. But the fact of the matter remains that Israel is the side holding the guns here, so you either play by their rules and try to find some positive outcome, or you flip the table and enjoy the complete loss, but with some moral satisfaction. Similarly, there would probably need to be some kind of border controls for imports that Israeli authorities can inspect for covert weapons shipments, since it's a known thing that Iran does regularly try to bring weapons into Gaza. Ideally, this would be some kind of bi-national force with Palestinian cooperation.

If you reach these points, then you still have other very big questions to deal with, like precise borders, land swaps, the question of Jerusalem, how to connect Gaza and the West Bank, any right of return for displaced Palestinians both recently and during the Nakba, and plenty of other things I'm sure I'm forgetting about. But ultimately, if you have a Palestinian and Israeli leadership that are actually interested in peace and accept the existence of the other, and both agree to cooperate on matters of security and prioritizing that peace above and past grievances, no matter how legitimate, that gives you a real foundation you can build from.

I wouldn't get my hopes up though.

[-] BraveSirZaphod@kbin.social 63 points 10 months ago

We just want to live god-fearing lives and raise good families.

And the main difference between us is that I don't really care if you do that, while your friends will label my future family with two dads as a gross perversion that calls for state intervention in order to prevent the terrible abuse of a child having two loving parents that happen to both be men, as if it's not abusive to raise a child under the terror of thinking that they're always being watched and will be tortured for all eternity if they wind up being attracted to the same gender. But ultimately, that's your life and I'll leave you to it. I'd just ask for the same courtesy.

[-] BraveSirZaphod@kbin.social 70 points 11 months ago

That would require getting elected, which would require them being broadly popular.

[-] BraveSirZaphod@kbin.social 72 points 11 months ago

Hell, he literally stole money from another Republican Congressman and his wife.

You almost have to respect it.

[-] BraveSirZaphod@kbin.social 64 points 1 year ago

It's also a very deliberate strategy to give a little bit of space for people who've identified as Republicans in the past but refuse to follow Trump. He's saying that you don't have to identify as a Democrat, or even necessarily drop the Republican party as a whole, but rather you simply have to recognize the obvious fact that Trump represents a major departure from the Republican party of the past and refuse to go along with it.

Of course, the part that isn't being said is that the old Republican party is well and truly dead and buried, but speaking diplomatically like that is very good politics and can help him net some more moderate votes in tighter margin states.

[-] BraveSirZaphod@kbin.social 53 points 1 year ago

You have to realize that this is not a terribly convincing statement, right?

[-] BraveSirZaphod@kbin.social 89 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Sure, criticize away, and you absolutely should. It's just important to not get so carried away that you wind up contributing to an outcome that you openly know to be objectively worse at the ballot box.

[-] BraveSirZaphod@kbin.social 102 points 1 year ago

Let this be a reminder to anyone who hasn't liked Biden's handling of the Gaza situation that this is the alternative.

[-] BraveSirZaphod@kbin.social 85 points 1 year ago

Seriously. Trump is advocating turning Gaza into a parking lot.

And it's not like Democrats have exactly been shy of their general support of Israel, if you've paid any attention at all. They just also happen to acknowledge that Palestinians are people, unlike most Republicans.

[-] BraveSirZaphod@kbin.social 68 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

For anyone who's not aware, some of the "other shit" is an extensive series of screenshots of texts where he's soliciting sexual interactions with teenage girls. Such excerpts include:

  • “Why are you such jailbait? What’s wrong with you in that regard? You should just grow older you dumb bitch.”
  • "Is it cool being a jailbait?"
  • “Does the FBI follow you around arresting all the men you sleep with?”

https://humanevents.com/2023/01/25/read-the-texts-ousted-rick-and-morty-co-creator-justin-roiland-allegedly-to-sent-young-fans

Just so we're clear that this isn't a "petty jealous ex" kind of situation.

[-] BraveSirZaphod@kbin.social 104 points 1 year ago

I really think this narrative is counterproductive. It's not like corporations produce greenhouse gasses because they think it's fun. They're doing it to produce goods that people want at the absolute minimal price possible.

No corporation is going to choose more environmentally friendly practices out of the goodness of their own hearts unless those practices are cheaper. And given that that is very rarely the case, we have to look at things like carbon taxes to actually price in the externalities of climate damage. But that is going to increase the prices of some goods, and that requires a level of political will that has proven very difficult to come by. "Just make corporations pay" to fix things, whether that's a carbon tax or taxes on oil company executive pay or dividends or whatever else the proposal may be is always going to mean "increase prices to compensate for climate-related externalities".

That doesn't necessarily mean that all costs of addressing climate change must directly fall on consumers; government subsidies to reduce the costs of environmentally sustainable practices can also be extremely beneficial. But ultimately, this is a problem that we've all created, and we're all going to have to be part of solving it. Blaming corporations, even if partially accurate, doesn't actually get us any closer to solving things.

[-] BraveSirZaphod@kbin.social 90 points 1 year ago

People left Facebook because it got overwhelmed with their parents and grandparents, not because they ever cared about privacy.

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BraveSirZaphod

joined 1 year ago