Hey James! Really appreciate your thoughtful comment and questions; these are excellent points that I agree warrant more attention. I'm going to let Jake give you the full answer because the details of the conflict and its history are his strength, where I'm more focused on explaining how ethno-nationalist ideologies like Zionism lead to…
Hey James! Really appreciate your thoughtful comment and questions; these are excellent points that I agree warrant more attention. I'm going to let Jake give you the full answer because the details of the conflict and its history are his strength, where I'm more focused on explaining how ethno-nationalist ideologies like Zionism lead to more conflict than other philosophies, like individualism or classical liberalism, and particularly why it's not useful for us in classical liberal societies to adopt this ideology in a kind of "solidarity" with Israel.
I will say, one of the first issues that comes to mind reading your comment is the role Israel's government has played in setting the stage for Hamas to come to power, and not only by not being willing to compromise with the previous Palestinian government on crucial points, like honoring in some way the deeds to land in Israel many Palestinians still hold. Hamas wasn't always in power and Palestinians weren't always as radicalized. This is the saddest part of this conflict, because when you look into the past, you see how many opportunities there were to avoid further conflict, but how conflict often just begets more conflict until both sides believe there's no alternative but total domination.
In my mind, Hamas is such an obviously horrifically terrible organization that it feels like this goes without saying when speaking with any reasonable person. There seems to be this issue by which criticism of Israel is interpreted as support for Hamas, but it's a false dichotomy. My criticism of Israel is because their own collectivist approach often fuels a collectivist backlash, going back to the first Zionist immigrants who intentionally planned to create an ethno-state, knowing this would require conflict and division. This is the worse part of the conflict, in my opinion: no one is willing to admit the basic truth of all conflict, which is that more of the same begets more of the same.
This is why I return the issue of collectivism when critiquing Israel and Zionism, but Hamas is also a perfect example in that its ideology believes people are better viewed as groups, and thus killing innocent Jews is fair retribution for the killing of innocent Palestinians, but equally, Israel responds by killing innocent Palestinians as retribution for the killing of innocent Jews. As long as both sides are locked into a collectivist mindset, which requires defining an evil out-group partially to define their righteous in-group, they are quite literally made for each other.
I think people often view the criticism of Israel and demands that it deescalate the conflict as demands for subservience, but it's actually because Israel is the more powerful entity in this conflict that the ability to end it primarily lays with it. Israel can spare future innocent Israeli lives by using its position of power to end the conflict rather than seek retribution by continuing the collectivist battle by which innocents are sacrificed in the name of a "greater" goal.
If we're being truly honest, what other option to ending the conflict is there besides seeing the collectivist Us vs Them battle through to the end, by which one group is effectively annihilated?
Hey James! Really appreciate your thoughtful comment and questions; these are excellent points that I agree warrant more attention. I'm going to let Jake give you the full answer because the details of the conflict and its history are his strength, where I'm more focused on explaining how ethno-nationalist ideologies like Zionism lead to more conflict than other philosophies, like individualism or classical liberalism, and particularly why it's not useful for us in classical liberal societies to adopt this ideology in a kind of "solidarity" with Israel.
I will say, one of the first issues that comes to mind reading your comment is the role Israel's government has played in setting the stage for Hamas to come to power, and not only by not being willing to compromise with the previous Palestinian government on crucial points, like honoring in some way the deeds to land in Israel many Palestinians still hold. Hamas wasn't always in power and Palestinians weren't always as radicalized. This is the saddest part of this conflict, because when you look into the past, you see how many opportunities there were to avoid further conflict, but how conflict often just begets more conflict until both sides believe there's no alternative but total domination.
In my mind, Hamas is such an obviously horrifically terrible organization that it feels like this goes without saying when speaking with any reasonable person. There seems to be this issue by which criticism of Israel is interpreted as support for Hamas, but it's a false dichotomy. My criticism of Israel is because their own collectivist approach often fuels a collectivist backlash, going back to the first Zionist immigrants who intentionally planned to create an ethno-state, knowing this would require conflict and division. This is the worse part of the conflict, in my opinion: no one is willing to admit the basic truth of all conflict, which is that more of the same begets more of the same.
This is why I return the issue of collectivism when critiquing Israel and Zionism, but Hamas is also a perfect example in that its ideology believes people are better viewed as groups, and thus killing innocent Jews is fair retribution for the killing of innocent Palestinians, but equally, Israel responds by killing innocent Palestinians as retribution for the killing of innocent Jews. As long as both sides are locked into a collectivist mindset, which requires defining an evil out-group partially to define their righteous in-group, they are quite literally made for each other.
I think people often view the criticism of Israel and demands that it deescalate the conflict as demands for subservience, but it's actually because Israel is the more powerful entity in this conflict that the ability to end it primarily lays with it. Israel can spare future innocent Israeli lives by using its position of power to end the conflict rather than seek retribution by continuing the collectivist battle by which innocents are sacrificed in the name of a "greater" goal.
If we're being truly honest, what other option to ending the conflict is there besides seeing the collectivist Us vs Them battle through to the end, by which one group is effectively annihilated?