2023-24 Israel-Hamas-Hezbollah-Iran-Houthi Conflict

[Ostroeuropa]

That wasn't my argument. I argued that uncivilized states behaving unlawfully give others a mandate to civilize them. I did not claim acting unlawfully makes one uncivilized. I specifically pointed out that I'm using the term uncivilized because of the border raids, and noting that is a fairly classical way of understanding it. A society which does not respect borders and conducts constant low level warfare against their neighbours, including raids, has been classically understood as being "Uncivilized".

You don't think the Israeli presence in the OPT does not constitute as Israel not respecting borders?

We've covered this.

No, the de-facto annexation is. And no, I don't particularly think mere illegality arises to the level of being uncivilized. As I said, I am calling these nations uncivilized in the most classical sense, in that they conduct border raids, the most basic tenet of international order is not to do that. Finally, i'd argue that the de-facto annexation has arisen due to such a unique circumstance that it was not foreseen when the laws were written. They were written to prevent nations just arbitrarily annexing parts of other nations without affording rights to those living there.

Israel hasn't done this arbitrarily. See for example; Sinai and the Golan Heights. The reason it has occurred is because the Palestinians have *refused to accept peace terms* despite being occupied for almost a century, which has functionally *necessitated* a continued Israeli administration over the territory and its gradual normalization into a civilian administration rather than military rule.

That isn't the reason those laws were made. It is illegal by technicality, not moral force.

[Fahran]

I know, I know - but wouldn't it make more sense to just strike their positions with rockets and drones? I just don't think that invading another country is the right thing to do (unless you're invaded by that country yourself). Yes Hezbollah might be in the governing coalition, but it still isn't equal to the whole state of Lebanon. I don't want to sound like a Russian whatabouttist, but what about the people of Lebanon that really don't support Hezbollah (aka the majority of the population) and just want to live in peace?

Besides, I'm quite sure Hezbollah would stop bombing Israel, if Israel ended the war in Gaza, which will have to end sooner or later and I don't think Israel will eliminate Hamas. There are no long-run goals and the decision to escalate with an invasion borders on insanity. Clearly the Likud government with its far-right partners is not acting reasonably - perhaps the Israelis are becoming more and more like Arabs in the sense that religious fundamentalism gets more and more mainstream in Israeli politics and foreign policy. Yes, I am aware of Hezbollah's horrible ideology and that they started bombing Israel, but they never escalated as much as Israel did now

It's an ill-conceived approach to Lebanon, one likely motivated by the belief that decimating Hezbollah's leadership would put them on the backfoot and make a ground operation, limited or otherwise, more tenable. I suspect the initial objective is to destroy as many artillery platforms, munitions, and pieces of military infrastructure near the border as possible to reduce Hezbollah's capacity to sustain bombardment of northern Israel, but that doesn't change the fact that Bibi doesn't have an exit strategy and keeps over-promising on war aims. Or that ground fighting in Lebanon will likely exact a heavy price in every relevant respect and once again violates Lebanon's sovereignty - not that Israel's sovereignty has been respected of late either.

[Washington Resistance Army]

That wasn't my argument. I argued that uncivilized states behaving unlawfully give others a mandate to civilize them. I did not claim acting unlawfully makes one uncivilized. I specifically pointed out that I'm using the term uncivilized because of the border raids, and noting that is a fairly classical way of understanding it. A society which does not respect borders and conducts constant low level warfare against their neighbours, including raids, has been classically understood as being "Uncivilized".

You don't think the Israeli presence in the OPT constitutes Israel not respecting borders?

No, see, it's different when the Israeli's do it, because reasons.

[Kaumudeen]

Occupying the land is the aggression.

So to be clear, it is your position that the Arabs can start a genocidal war, lose that war, refuse to negotiate for peace and refuse to recognize Israel, but by virtue of Israel not surrendering the land back, Israel is the aggressor.

Is that the case?

I wonder why Israel hasn't "Started a war" with Egypt.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_o ... (1967-1982)

It's a mystery.

Britain, France and Israel started the Suez War. Or is that too inconvenient for you to notice?

[SusScorfa]

You don't think the Israeli presence in the OPT does not constitute as Israel not respecting borders?

We've covered this.

No, the de-facto annexation is. And no, I don't particularly think mere illegality arises to the level of being uncivilized. As I said, I am calling these nations uncivilized in the most classical sense, in that they conduct border raids, the most basic tenet of international order is not to do that. Finally, i'd argue that the de-facto annexation has arisen due to such a unique circumstance that it was not foreseen when the laws were written. They were written to prevent nations just arbitrarily annexing parts of other nations without affording rights to those living there.

Israel hasn't done this arbitrarily. See for example; Sinai and the Golan Heights. The reason it has occurred is because the Palestinians have *refused to accept peace terms* despite being occupied for almost a century, which has functionally *necessitated* a continued Israeli administration over the territory and its gradual normalization into a civilian administration rather than military rule.

That isn't the reason those laws were made. It is illegal by technicality, not moral force.

Sorry, I'm going to take the courts opinion over yours. It is unlawful, continues to be so. And very much constitutes Israel as not respecting borders. Israel also engages in low level warfare and builds settlements in the OPT. So I guess your argument hinges on some "classical" definition of savages and border raids. Like the mowing of grass strategy of Israel.

[Israel and Moshiach]

So to be clear, it is your position that the Arabs can start a genocidal war, lose that war, refuse to negotiate for peace and refuse to recognize Israel, but by virtue of Israel not surrendering the land back, Israel is the aggressor.

Is that the case?

I wonder why Israel hasn't "Started a war" with Egypt.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_o ... (1967-1982)

It's a mystery.

Britain, France and Israel started the Suez War. Or is that too inconvenient for you to notice?

you won't find answers in the past or anywhere to validate your ignorance

[SusScorfa]

I know, I know - but wouldn't it make more sense to just strike their positions with rockets and drones? I just don't think that invading another country is the right thing to do (unless you're invaded by that country yourself). Yes Hezbollah might be in the governing coalition, but it still isn't equal to the whole state of Lebanon. I don't want to sound like a Russian whatabouttist, but what about the people of Lebanon that really don't support Hezbollah (aka the majority of the population) and just want to live in peace?

Besides, I'm quite sure Hezbollah would stop bombing Israel, if Israel ended the war in Gaza, which will have to end sooner or later and I don't think Israel will eliminate Hamas. There are no long-run goals and the decision to escalate with an invasion borders on insanity. Clearly the Likud government with its far-right partners is not acting reasonably - perhaps the Israelis are becoming more and more like Arabs in the sense that religious fundamentalism gets more and more mainstream in Israeli politics and foreign policy. Yes, I am aware of Hezbollah's horrible ideology and that they started bombing Israel, but they never escalated as much as Israel did now

It's an ill-conceived approach to Lebanon, one likely motivated by the belief that decimating Hezbollah's leadership would put them on the backfoot and make a ground operation, limited or otherwise, more tenable. I suspect the initial objective is to destroy as many artillery platforms, munitions, and pieces of military infrastructure near the border as possible to reduce Hezbollah's capacity to sustain bombardment of northern Israel, but that doesn't change the fact that Bibi doesn't have an exit strategy and keeps over-promising on war aims. Or that ground fighting in Lebanon will likely exact a heavy price in every relevant respect and once again violates Lebanon's sovereignty - not that Israel's sovereignty has been respected of late either.

Speaking of Bibi, is his future looking brighter?

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c243zempn6zo

[Fahran]

Speaking of Bibi, is his future looking brighter?

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c243zempn6zo

Yep. He's still likely to lose to the opposition, but Likud isn't as badly off as they were before.

New Hope has rejoined the governing coalition too, practically ensuring that Netanyahu will serve out the rest of his term. Really, the only thing that could dissolve the government at this point is Shas defecting.

[SusScorfa]

You don't think the Israeli presence in the OPT constitutes Israel not respecting borders?

No, see, it's different when the Israeli's do it, because reasons.

Seems to be the gist of it.

[Major-Tom]

Here's an idea.

Maybe don't escalate an already tense conflict by rolling into your northern neighbor for the purpose of "limited strikes on a militant group" while you cause untold destruction in the process. Because if you do, you might provoke Iran - which is exactly what anyone could have expected.

I can't imagine that Bibi wasn't hoping for escalation with Iran.

[Washington Resistance Army]

Here's an idea.

Maybe don't escalate an already tense conflict by rolling into your northern neighbor for the purpose of "limited strikes on a militant group" while you cause untold destruction in the process. Because if you do, you might provoke another Iran - which is exactly what anyone could have expected.

I can't imagine that Bibi wasn't hoping for escalation with Iran.

Oh he absolutely wants an escalation. It makes him more popular in Israel and lessens the chances the Democrats get elected in the US. It's a win-win for him.

[SusScorfa]

Here's an idea.

Maybe don't escalate an already tense conflict by rolling into your northern neighbor for the purpose of "limited strikes on a militant group" while you cause untold destruction in the process. Because if you do, you might provoke another Iran - which is exactly what anyone could have expected.

I can't imagine that Bibi wasn't hoping for escalation with Iran.

Oh he absolutely wants an escalation. It makes him more popular in Israel and lessens the chances the Democrats get elected in the US. It's a win-win for him.

And maybe gets to strike at the Iranian nuclear facilities, at long last.

[Fahran]

Oh he absolutely wants an escalation. It makes him more popular in Israel and lessens the chances the Democrats get elected in the US. It's a win-win for him.

Rally around the flag effect benefitting literally every leader involved with the possible exception of Harris.

And maybe gets to strike at the Iranian nuclear facilities, at long last.

There's been theorizing that the main thing that was preventing a strike by Israel against Iran's nuclear facilities was the fear of retaliation by Hezbollah. I'm not certain to what extent that's true, but we might find out soon.

[Major-Tom]

Here's an idea.

Maybe don't escalate an already tense conflict by rolling into your northern neighbor for the purpose of "limited strikes on a militant group" while you cause untold destruction in the process. Because if you do, you might provoke another Iran - which is exactly what anyone could have expected.

I can't imagine that Bibi wasn't hoping for escalation with Iran.

Oh he absolutely wants an escalation. It makes him more popular in Israel and lessens the chances the Democrats get elected in the US. It's a win-win for him.

I suspect he does too. I can't think of any other reason why they'd choose now to go full-on 1982 in Lebanon at a time where they're already struggling to successfully end and contain the war in Gaza.

What I don't think he understands is that this probably won't make him more popular in Israel. To the best of my knowledge, he's pretty unpopular domestically, and a lot of it is because of discontent regarding his braindead military and foreign policy.

[Major-Tom]

That caused little or no reported damage, and three casualties, and many weapons were intercepted.

There used to be a concept called "take the win".

I personally wouldn't want to live next to civilizations that conduct constant border raids. Elwher is right. Israel has a mandate to invade and pacify most of its neighbors because they are completely uncivilized territories in an extremely classic sense, in that they cannot abide by ordinary international order as lawful states.

Defending them doing so because it's "not that big a deal" is missing the point.

There also used to be a concept called "Civilize the savage", but the left doesn't want to admit that it was a necessary period for mankind. If these countries don't learn to stop launching constant low scale attacks after being bombed to fuck for doing it and cry about how we're victimizing them, then they must simply be colonized and rehabilitated into being lawful actors. Acting appalled about how that would require violently suppressing the prisoner throwing a tantrum and constantly trying to escape so they can keep doing crimes entirely misses the point.

"All he does is punch people every day. How can that possibly justify you deciding to throw him in a cage? And he only keeps trying to shiv the guards because you put him in the cage, and now you're escalating to beating him with truncheons! You're the bad guys here! The punches weren't even that hard!".

This is a satirical take, yeah? Lauding Israel for larping as a 19th century colonialist country?

[Fahran]

This is a satirical take, yeah? Lauding Israel for larping as a 19th century colonialist country?

The cooler LARP is LARPing as a tribal sheikh and pursuing the ghazw until the enemy are driven from their oases. But we need more camels for that. And fewer laws and morals.

There's a meme about family that works really well for this.

[Major-Tom]

This is a satirical take, yeah? Lauding Israel for larping as a 19th century colonialist country?

The cooler LARP is LARPing as a tribal sheikh and pursuing the ghazw until the enemy are driven from their oases. But we need more camels for that. And fewer laws and morals.

There's a meme about family that works really well for this.

I have to say I'm a little confused.

[Ostroeuropa]

I personally wouldn't want to live next to civilizations that conduct constant border raids. Elwher is right. Israel has a mandate to invade and pacify most of its neighbors because they are completely uncivilized territories in an extremely classic sense, in that they cannot abide by ordinary international order as lawful states.

Defending them doing so because it's "not that big a deal" is missing the point.

There also used to be a concept called "Civilize the savage", but the left doesn't want to admit that it was a necessary period for mankind. If these countries don't learn to stop launching constant low scale attacks after being bombed to fuck for doing it and cry about how we're victimizing them, then they must simply be colonized and rehabilitated into being lawful actors. Acting appalled about how that would require violently suppressing the prisoner throwing a tantrum and constantly trying to escape so they can keep doing crimes entirely misses the point.

"All he does is punch people every day. How can that possibly justify you deciding to throw him in a cage? And he only keeps trying to shiv the guards because you put him in the cage, and now you're escalating to beating him with truncheons! You're the bad guys here! The punches weren't even that hard!".

This is a satirical take, yeah? Lauding Israel for larping as a 19th century colonialist country?

No. It's pointing out that the histrionic accusations levelled at Israel about how it's behaving like a 19th century colonialist country make the assumption that would be a bad thing, but don't really have an argument for why except insisting it wasn't necessary to do that to modernize the world, despite the evidence right in front of their eyes and written plainly in data.

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/glob ... e-long-run

https://ourworldindata.org/images/publi ... -2_850.png

Etc.

[La Xinga]

So ... all those missiles, and the only person that was killed was a Palestinian? I hear he was wanted? And just in time for the new year? !הודו לה' אלוקינו
Another Basiji L

[Major-Tom]

This is a satirical take, yeah? Lauding Israel for larping as a 19th century colonialist country?

No. It's pointing out that the histrionic accusations levelled at Israel about how it's behaving like a 19th century colonialist country make the assumption that would be a bad thing, but don't really have an argument for why except insisting it wasn't necessary to do that to modernize the world, despite the evidence right in front of their eyes and written plainly in data.

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/glob ... e-long-run

https://ourworldindata.org/images/publi ... -2_850.png

Etc.

Colonization = GDP go brr?? Okay?

[Washington Resistance Army]

Since colonization is a good thing, clearly we should move another 20 million Arabs into England. Imagine how good it'll be for the GDP!

[Ostroeuropa]

No. It's pointing out that the histrionic accusations levelled at Israel about how it's behaving like a 19th century colonialist country make the assumption that would be a bad thing, but don't really have an argument for why except insisting it wasn't necessary to do that to modernize the world, despite the evidence right in front of their eyes and written plainly in data.

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/glob ... e-long-run

https://ourworldindata.org/images/publi ... -2_850.png

Etc.

Colonization = GDP go brr?? Okay?

GDP had completely flatlined for almost the entirety of human history until the colonial era. It was demonstrably good for mankind. In part, because it imposed particular norms and institutions onto societies that previously lacked them. Moreover, its aftermath has led to the most peaceful and prosperous period in human history, demonstrating that unlike previous forms of imperialism, the European Empires were constructed in such a way that the Pax Occidentis lasted long after their decline rather than resulting in a period of constant warfare until a new dominant power emerged.

Regions which remained uncolonized have either actively and consciously westernized willingly, or have stagnated and remain interminable sources of conflict. The conclusion is simple; finish the job. The alternative is to allow the middle east to remain an outlier in the human family, a danger to those that neighbour them, a danger to themselves, and a drag on the species in terms of innovation, economics, and moral progress.

We know a process which has worked to solve these problems before. We just refuse to do it because we convinced ourselves it was evil. It wasn't.

[SusScorfa]

I'm confused, don't those charts show a larger differential after colonialism was kind of done.

[Washington Resistance Army]

I'm confused, don't those charts show a larger differential after colonialism was kind of done.

They do, but those don't support his argument so he ignores that bit and was hoping you wouldn't notice.

It's also completely fucking retarded in general to talk about GDP before the rise of capitalism. No shit agrarian societies in the Iron Age didn't have the same GDP as a space age superpower in the 2020s, lol.

[Ostroeuropa]

I'm confused, don't those charts show a larger differential after colonialism was kind of done.

Certainly. Imposing a modern economy on people improves the economy, but letting them manage it themselves is drastically better. But if they don't have a modern economy and refuse to adopt one by copying yours, there's a clear path to take. So it goes for government, society, administration, and culture in general.

The reason the middle east is such a problem is that it has been left out of modernization. Ottoman attempts to modernize and westernize completely flopped but were eventually incorporated into Turkish modernization.

This is why Turkey isn't as much of a problem for the human species as the rest of the middle east, which largely defines itself in opposition to westernization and western norms, and has since the Ottoman era and the arabic nationalist conspiracy theories about how white christians were controlling the ottoman government to cause homosexuality to be legal.

Arab nationalism defines itself as anti-western and always has. It's why they tell such ridiculous lies about the Balfour declaration for example. The middle east is an area where the reactionaries won against the modernizers. It won't fix itself until it has westernized.

They refuse to westernize by choice.

We have historical examples of what to do in this situation, but we refuse to learn from them.