I posted this comment on a Substack shortly after the October 7 atrocity:
""The truth is that if Israel were to put down its arms there would be no more Israel. If the Arabs were to put down their arms there would be no more war." For all the billions of words that have poured out of the mouths of pundits down the years, I have yet to hear a single one that in any way diminishes the baleful truth of these words of Benjamin Netanyahu in 2006."
It got a huge number of 'likes' at the time but - more surprisingly - they still keep popping up occasionally in my inbox now many months later.
Yes, someone else made a similar comment at that time.... Golda Meir: "when Arab mothers love their children more than they hate the Jews there will be peace.
That would be like if German said in 1944 "If only the the philosemetites would put down their arms, there would be no more war". It's easy to call for peace after you consolidate your gains I.e. crocodile tears. What you are intentionally ignoring is It legitimizes the ethic cleansing of Palestinians from Palestine and denies them THEIR ethnostate for eternity, which is of no less strength than Jews over Israel. Jews have no inherent right to a ethnostate, at least no more than anyone else but generally the West condemned both apartheid South Africa and the Aryan Nations.
I'm not inherently against Israel but goose gander. If the pendulum is now moving where ethnostates are condoned, I look forward to all the Israelphiles starting to openly support the Russian expansion, Chinese Uyghur solution, strong immigration restrictions and race based policies, and white nationalism. Whodathunk George Rockwell in 2024 becomes the modern George Washington.
"The West" is generally perfectly happy with ethnostates and often supports creation of them. That was what the break-up of Yugoslavia was all about, or the creation of Bangladesh. Support for ethnostates would mean support for a separate Uyghur state or a separate Tibet ("Free Tibet!"). Indeed, there were idealistic Americans who thought that if people living in eastern Ukraine voted in a "free and fair" referendum to join Russia (because they considered themselves Russians, not Ukrainians), they should be allowed to.
Arnold, you may not have written to persuade, but this piece is nevertheless persuasive of your views. Not futile at all. You quote Frank Furedi attempting to distinguish Muslims (presumably moderate) from Islamists. However, a reading of the Koran makes it clear that the distinction is that the latter take the demands of their sacred scripture seriously; the former ignore them. As has been said, there may be moderate Muslims, but there is no moderate Islam.
I suspect that every religion has in their holy books passages that, if taken seriously, would make believers sociopaths. The "Old Testament" has "completely exterminate the Jebusites, Perizites, ..." The New Testament has Jesus saying, "I bring not peace but a sword" and "I come to set son against father, daughter against mother."
But most modern-day believers either ignore such passages or explain them away. I have faith in the ability of modern Muslims to do the same. (But, says a small voice, there sure are a lot of un-modern Muslims.)
While calls to violence appear other scripture, Muslims believe the Koran is the word of God himself, and Mohammed was only in effect the stenographer.
Many Christians believe the same thing. I have been in many churches when after a Bible reading, the pastor says, "The word of God".
And there is, of course, the famous slogan of biblical literalism, "God said it, I believe it, and that's that." So, for example, God must have created all things in six days as set forth in Genesis.
They already did centuries ago. What goes unsaid is Islam has taken a hard turn right the past century and it's directly correlated to attacks on it's nominal nations by Jews and Papists as it's inhereints believe they are facing a existential threat, maybe rightly so.
Hamas doesn't seem to have lost much swagger so far. ( https://www.msn.com/en-ie/news/other/palestinians-reject-proposal-to-introduce-arab-multi-national-force-in-gaza/ar-BB1kO1jl ) so maybe the Gazans aren't that hungry. Maybe the three-state option of dividing Gaza into independent North and South political entities might be a means to constrain the size of the conflict. Since the US has already invaded Gazan territorial waters to construct the pier, perhaps Israel might invite the US to reconstruct civil institutions in a North Gaza much in the same way the US did in Iraq following the invasion there. With so much successful experience in nation building to draw upon, surely introducing cosmopolitan liberal democracy to the North Gazans is the least the US could do given its politicians' professed concern for civilian welfare.
My cynical take is that arms exports are an increasingly large share of US exports, manufacturing, and GDP generally. (https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/us-arms-exports-hit-record-high-fiscal-2023-2024-01-29/ ) The US likes to talk out of both sides of its mouth but when push comes to shove money talks loudest, as we saw with the transfer of big bombs reported the other day. I have yet to come across a clear explanation of the amount of each different type of military aid to Israel but from this (https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/us-arms-exports-hit-record-high-fiscal-2023-2024-01-29/ ) I gather the relationship is symbiotic with the pure grant money winding up in the pockets of US defense contractors, Israeli research aiding US weapons development, not inconsiderable amounts aid being in the form of EXIM bank loan guarantees, and the appearance of something like a non-compete clause requiring Israel to eliminate off-shore procurement:
"The terms of the FY2019-FY2028 MOU differ from previous agreements on issues such as,
Phasing out Off-Shore Procurement (OSP).47 OSP is to decrease slowly until
FY2024, and then phase out more dramatically over the MOU’s last five years,
ending entirely in FY2028 (see Figure 2). The MOU calls on Israel to provide
the United States with “detailed programmatic information related to the use of
all U.S. funding, including funds used for OSP.” In response to the planned
phase-out of OSP, some Israeli defense contractors are merging with U.S.
companies or opening U.S. subsidiaries to continue their eligibility for defense
contracts financed through FMF."
And then there is the joint missile development funding:
"Missile Defense. The Administration pledges to request $500 million in annual
combined funding for missile defense programs with joint U.S.-Israeli elements—such as Iron Dome, Arrow II and Arrow III, and David’s Sling.
Previous MOUs did not include missile defense funding, which has traditionally
been appropriated via separate interactions between successive Administrations
and Congresses. While the MOU commits both the United States and Israel to a
$500 million annual U.S. missile defense contribution, it also stipulates that
under exceptional circumstances (e.g., major armed conflict involving Israel),
both sides may agree on U.S. support above the $500 million annual cap). In
FY2022, Congress appropriated $1 billion in additional missile defense funding
for Israel."
One might get the impression that US aid to Israel is not pure altruism stirred by the noble instincts in politicians' hearts that it is so often made out to be.
If Obama is reelected and decides to cut off Israel entirely in his lameduck second term, Israel might turn to democratic India for cheap and reliable fighter jets, democratic Sweden for its highly reliable and combat ready Gryphon fighters, or even to German which is apparently close to producing a 6th generation fighter. Israel was the first buyer for the F35 and as such played an important role in marketing the rarely combat ready plane elsewhere. When the shooting down of a cruise missile by an Israeli F35 made front page news worldwide, one can see that the US might have something to lose without Israel's support. And Israel's autonomy, and accompanied increased will to survive, might benefit. Realpolitik thus suggests the US has an interest in Israel's long-term survival and, as in Ukraine, may prove to be content to tinker around to continue the fight indefinitely.
There is no hope for peace so long as Arab genetics are what they are. You can't have a two state solution if the other side can't build a successful state, and there is no oil for the Palestinians to hire people to build it for them.
It's possible that technology will allow for Arab genetics to be changed, though that is very long term.
The best Israel can probably manage until then is to muddle through. Personally I would drive the Palestinians out of Gaza/West Bank but I can see why Israel won't do it. They do seem to be opting to build a big moat in north Gaza.
Arabs are declining in fertility and ferocity (a generation ago they would actually be trying to invade Israel, not trying to get a few dumb fucks to do a surprise massacre and immediately retreat). Half the Arab world leadership just wants to get rich selling oil and becoming western.
Oct 7th is horrific, but it's not actually an existential threat. Just wait things out. Hope polygenic selection works or some other series of events makes a difference. Escalation to a wider Middle East war is a mistake.
I have better hopes for Israel than for diaspora Jews. At least Israeli's don't have to lie to themselves and are living healthier lives.
Israel is in a great position to benefit from advances in embryo selection technology. And AI. Nvidia is building its AI in Israel. (EDIT: I mean the chips for AI of course)
Israel is going to normalize with KSA soon. Israel is winning demographically. Kling is too pessimistic.
The best reason I see for pessimism is the existence of nuclear weapons.
Putting that aside, it seems Israel has a strong advantage given their technological / human capital advantages, combined with a motivated population. In the long run, it would be good to do more weapons manufacturing at home and rely less on the US. Start up some drone factories.
I should also add that Israel has great missile defense and is shooting down missiles all the time. Medium and long range ones are even easier to shoot down than short range ones. So they should be able to shoot down an Iranian nuke.
The difference between nukes and conventional weapons is that -- if some of the points you raise don't end up holding -- that may be the end of the story. Unlike Oct 7, where Israel messed up on its defense, but now has a chance to respond.
Not sure what to do about that, but Iran seems the biggest danger, since it's so close to nukes.
For some reason I’m having trouble editing comments from my phone so hence there are tons of different comments here.
But yeah also Iran is a petrostate and is going to be absolutely fucked by the transition away from fossil fuels. It has a low TFR and dysgenics. So, yeah.
Qatar is also a petrostate so net zero mean they run out of money to fund Hamas. Lebanese Shia also have below replacement TFR just like Iran. And so on. I’m overall optimistic. Technology always favors developed high IQ nations. It’s a pro-civilization force. Good. These IQ gaps will get larger as advanced and tech friendly nations like Israel are early on embryo selection.
It’s a real concern, sure, but for various reasons I think Israel and the US and the UAE can live with an Iranian bomb the way the US and SK and Japan live with a North Korean bomb and India lives with a Pakistani bomb. Not great but technology and missile defense can shoot it down, and you can deter its use.
The Iranian regime isn’t suicidal. If Hamas had a nuke that would be a different story, but thankfully that’s not going to happen.
Even still, we’re talking about a small Iranian bomb that would probably be aimed badly and/or shot down by Israel’s great missile defense, and if it hit would destroy a few blocks of Tel Aviv. Awful but not the end of Israel.
Yeah perhaps a few blocks is understating it. But we’re talking about one neighborhood of Tel Aviv and maybe 20K deaths. Definitely a five figure number. Awful but no second Holocaust. And in response Iran gets destroyed and people send Israel tons of aid.
Good point about the diminishing capabilities of the Arab nations.
The world is going to look very different in one or two decades as overall population stasis takes hold, and global trade continues to decline. The decline won't be uniform and it's going to occur in places people don't expect. It's an outlier but I wouldn't be surprised if India made some moves in the Persian Gulf region that could have significant impact on the Iranians.
I share your frustration. But I am much more pessimistic.
I have a hard time imagining the time when Israel could win - Hamas, Fatah, and Hezbollah have had the time to raise two generations committed to the destruction of Israel. They have a stable equilibrium, where they are funded from Muslim countries who don't want them to change, and from international institutions that won't ever insist they change. They hold their people hostage to keep the funding going, while ruthlessly suppressing any alternative leadership. There are some who think Israel could win by military conquest, but Israel is not constituted to rule over a captive people, and the Arabs wouldn't accept Jewish rule. And I can't imagine Israel trying to expel all the Arabs from the West Bank and Gaza, or achieving peace if they did.
I have a hard time imagining the time when Israel's enemies win, unless the US cuts Israel loose. Israelis realize they are in a do or die situation, and they won't knuckle under. They have the resources (including US technology) to hold off their enemies.
I am completely unable to imagine a two-state solution. Such a solution would require good faith on both sides. Hamas, Fatah, and Hezbollah clearly don't have such good faith, and will destroy any Palestinians who might. There are many Israelis, probably most, who have such good faith, but they have no one to deal with, and there seems to be an anti-agreement minority that can veto a solution if one is presented.
The long term solution is that the earth is consumed by fire when the sun becomes a red giant. Until then, I see nothing but continuing conflict.
We already have a two-state solution. It's called Jordan and was split off from the intended Israel by the British. The non-Jews in Israel could go live peacefully on any of many plots of land throughout the world, if only they were not semi-autonomous weapons in the hands of others. In the Arab world, there will always be a more extreme branch that attempts to wrest power from the less extreme by attacking the Jews in an ever more exaggerated manner.
This is not a problem that can be dealt with through simple political means. The only alternatives are for Jews to be protected from superior and more numerous forces - or die. Judaism as a culture holds no particular hope of survival. It's always on a random walk to extinction. As a religion, it adheres to hope fundamentally at odds with material probability. This is difficult to swallow or admit.
Among the many complications you are glossing over here, let's pick one: do you see a logistically viable path to a "swift and decisive victory" that does not entail writing off the remaining 100 or so hostages, leaving them for dead? If so, why?
Maybe you think Israel ought to leave them for dead. Ok, but that is not the position of the median Israeli voter. The crowds in recent Israeli anti-government demonstrations, urging Netanyahu to compromise more to get a hostage deal, may be wrongheaded but they are not "Queers for Palestine" or anything close.
All that is to say: if Western moderate squeamishness were the only thing standing between Israel and total victory, they would have had total victory by now.
The outcome if Israel loses is unlikely to be a replay of the Holocaust. It is more likely to resemble the aftermath of the Roman-Jewish wars, another in the long line of Jewish diasporas. Of course some Israelis could refuse to leave resulting in another Masada.
Perhaps the U.S. and Canada could give the Jewish Israelis something like the right of return. It would be beneficial to both countries.
Arnold is allowed to have his pulpit, the same as the rest of us. We may not agree on politics in this instance but I still genuinely appreciate his posts on the topic and it makes me respect him more. He's a person, the same as everyone else.
Excellently done, clear and precise. Of course, I agreed before I started reading . . . but if one can only write out of frustration, at least it is elegantly done.
"The barbaric thought comes from the social justice activists, but they are not organized for violence. The barbaric action comes from Islamic radicals. Put the two together and you get Queers for Palestine. "
I like you piece except "Queers for Palestine" seems unnecessarily and extremely antagonistic. Be that as it may, I get that "Queers for Palestine" might make sense if they looked at the situation as oppressor and the oppressed. That doesn't seem to be what you refer to here, or is it?
I posted this comment on a Substack shortly after the October 7 atrocity:
""The truth is that if Israel were to put down its arms there would be no more Israel. If the Arabs were to put down their arms there would be no more war." For all the billions of words that have poured out of the mouths of pundits down the years, I have yet to hear a single one that in any way diminishes the baleful truth of these words of Benjamin Netanyahu in 2006."
It got a huge number of 'likes' at the time but - more surprisingly - they still keep popping up occasionally in my inbox now many months later.
Israel hates war but loves Israel more. Likewise, the Muslims and the left hate Israel more. War is forever.
Agreed! Except my recollection is that Golda Meir made a very similar statement when she was Prime Minister long before 2006. (I might be wrong.)
Yes, someone else made a similar comment at that time.... Golda Meir: "when Arab mothers love their children more than they hate the Jews there will be peace.
I'm skeptical mother's have much influence on this.
That would be like if German said in 1944 "If only the the philosemetites would put down their arms, there would be no more war". It's easy to call for peace after you consolidate your gains I.e. crocodile tears. What you are intentionally ignoring is It legitimizes the ethic cleansing of Palestinians from Palestine and denies them THEIR ethnostate for eternity, which is of no less strength than Jews over Israel. Jews have no inherent right to a ethnostate, at least no more than anyone else but generally the West condemned both apartheid South Africa and the Aryan Nations.
I'm not inherently against Israel but goose gander. If the pendulum is now moving where ethnostates are condoned, I look forward to all the Israelphiles starting to openly support the Russian expansion, Chinese Uyghur solution, strong immigration restrictions and race based policies, and white nationalism. Whodathunk George Rockwell in 2024 becomes the modern George Washington.
"The West" is generally perfectly happy with ethnostates and often supports creation of them. That was what the break-up of Yugoslavia was all about, or the creation of Bangladesh. Support for ethnostates would mean support for a separate Uyghur state or a separate Tibet ("Free Tibet!"). Indeed, there were idealistic Americans who thought that if people living in eastern Ukraine voted in a "free and fair" referendum to join Russia (because they considered themselves Russians, not Ukrainians), they should be allowed to.
For what it's worth I agree with every single word.
Arnold, you may not have written to persuade, but this piece is nevertheless persuasive of your views. Not futile at all. You quote Frank Furedi attempting to distinguish Muslims (presumably moderate) from Islamists. However, a reading of the Koran makes it clear that the distinction is that the latter take the demands of their sacred scripture seriously; the former ignore them. As has been said, there may be moderate Muslims, but there is no moderate Islam.
I suspect that every religion has in their holy books passages that, if taken seriously, would make believers sociopaths. The "Old Testament" has "completely exterminate the Jebusites, Perizites, ..." The New Testament has Jesus saying, "I bring not peace but a sword" and "I come to set son against father, daughter against mother."
But most modern-day believers either ignore such passages or explain them away. I have faith in the ability of modern Muslims to do the same. (But, says a small voice, there sure are a lot of un-modern Muslims.)
While calls to violence appear other scripture, Muslims believe the Koran is the word of God himself, and Mohammed was only in effect the stenographer.
Many Christians believe the same thing. I have been in many churches when after a Bible reading, the pastor says, "The word of God".
And there is, of course, the famous slogan of biblical literalism, "God said it, I believe it, and that's that." So, for example, God must have created all things in six days as set forth in Genesis.
Christianity, like Islam, is supposed to supercede Judaism, making Jews anachronistic at best and subversive enemies at worst.
And yet Christendom had the Enlightenment, developed the concepts of human rights and separation of church and state. Islam needs such a reformation.
They already did centuries ago. What goes unsaid is Islam has taken a hard turn right the past century and it's directly correlated to attacks on it's nominal nations by Jews and Papists as it's inhereints believe they are facing a existential threat, maybe rightly so.
I begrudge Arnold neither his pulpit nor his posts. I'm just asking him to not claim that he's not preaching when he is.
Hamas doesn't seem to have lost much swagger so far. ( https://www.msn.com/en-ie/news/other/palestinians-reject-proposal-to-introduce-arab-multi-national-force-in-gaza/ar-BB1kO1jl ) so maybe the Gazans aren't that hungry. Maybe the three-state option of dividing Gaza into independent North and South political entities might be a means to constrain the size of the conflict. Since the US has already invaded Gazan territorial waters to construct the pier, perhaps Israel might invite the US to reconstruct civil institutions in a North Gaza much in the same way the US did in Iraq following the invasion there. With so much successful experience in nation building to draw upon, surely introducing cosmopolitan liberal democracy to the North Gazans is the least the US could do given its politicians' professed concern for civilian welfare.
My cynical take is that arms exports are an increasingly large share of US exports, manufacturing, and GDP generally. (https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/us-arms-exports-hit-record-high-fiscal-2023-2024-01-29/ ) The US likes to talk out of both sides of its mouth but when push comes to shove money talks loudest, as we saw with the transfer of big bombs reported the other day. I have yet to come across a clear explanation of the amount of each different type of military aid to Israel but from this (https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/us-arms-exports-hit-record-high-fiscal-2023-2024-01-29/ ) I gather the relationship is symbiotic with the pure grant money winding up in the pockets of US defense contractors, Israeli research aiding US weapons development, not inconsiderable amounts aid being in the form of EXIM bank loan guarantees, and the appearance of something like a non-compete clause requiring Israel to eliminate off-shore procurement:
"The terms of the FY2019-FY2028 MOU differ from previous agreements on issues such as,
Phasing out Off-Shore Procurement (OSP).47 OSP is to decrease slowly until
FY2024, and then phase out more dramatically over the MOU’s last five years,
ending entirely in FY2028 (see Figure 2). The MOU calls on Israel to provide
the United States with “detailed programmatic information related to the use of
all U.S. funding, including funds used for OSP.” In response to the planned
phase-out of OSP, some Israeli defense contractors are merging with U.S.
companies or opening U.S. subsidiaries to continue their eligibility for defense
contracts financed through FMF."
And then there is the joint missile development funding:
"Missile Defense. The Administration pledges to request $500 million in annual
combined funding for missile defense programs with joint U.S.-Israeli elements—such as Iron Dome, Arrow II and Arrow III, and David’s Sling.
Previous MOUs did not include missile defense funding, which has traditionally
been appropriated via separate interactions between successive Administrations
and Congresses. While the MOU commits both the United States and Israel to a
$500 million annual U.S. missile defense contribution, it also stipulates that
under exceptional circumstances (e.g., major armed conflict involving Israel),
both sides may agree on U.S. support above the $500 million annual cap). In
FY2022, Congress appropriated $1 billion in additional missile defense funding
for Israel."
One might get the impression that US aid to Israel is not pure altruism stirred by the noble instincts in politicians' hearts that it is so often made out to be.
If Obama is reelected and decides to cut off Israel entirely in his lameduck second term, Israel might turn to democratic India for cheap and reliable fighter jets, democratic Sweden for its highly reliable and combat ready Gryphon fighters, or even to German which is apparently close to producing a 6th generation fighter. Israel was the first buyer for the F35 and as such played an important role in marketing the rarely combat ready plane elsewhere. When the shooting down of a cruise missile by an Israeli F35 made front page news worldwide, one can see that the US might have something to lose without Israel's support. And Israel's autonomy, and accompanied increased will to survive, might benefit. Realpolitik thus suggests the US has an interest in Israel's long-term survival and, as in Ukraine, may prove to be content to tinker around to continue the fight indefinitely.
There is no hope for peace so long as Arab genetics are what they are. You can't have a two state solution if the other side can't build a successful state, and there is no oil for the Palestinians to hire people to build it for them.
It's possible that technology will allow for Arab genetics to be changed, though that is very long term.
The best Israel can probably manage until then is to muddle through. Personally I would drive the Palestinians out of Gaza/West Bank but I can see why Israel won't do it. They do seem to be opting to build a big moat in north Gaza.
Arabs are declining in fertility and ferocity (a generation ago they would actually be trying to invade Israel, not trying to get a few dumb fucks to do a surprise massacre and immediately retreat). Half the Arab world leadership just wants to get rich selling oil and becoming western.
Oct 7th is horrific, but it's not actually an existential threat. Just wait things out. Hope polygenic selection works or some other series of events makes a difference. Escalation to a wider Middle East war is a mistake.
I have better hopes for Israel than for diaspora Jews. At least Israeli's don't have to lie to themselves and are living healthier lives.
Israel is in a great position to benefit from advances in embryo selection technology. And AI. Nvidia is building its AI in Israel. (EDIT: I mean the chips for AI of course)
Israel is going to normalize with KSA soon. Israel is winning demographically. Kling is too pessimistic.
The best reason I see for pessimism is the existence of nuclear weapons.
Putting that aside, it seems Israel has a strong advantage given their technological / human capital advantages, combined with a motivated population. In the long run, it would be good to do more weapons manufacturing at home and rely less on the US. Start up some drone factories.
I should also add that Israel has great missile defense and is shooting down missiles all the time. Medium and long range ones are even easier to shoot down than short range ones. So they should be able to shoot down an Iranian nuke.
Anyway I should add many outside forces disincentivize the use of nukes.
Let's hope!
The difference between nukes and conventional weapons is that -- if some of the points you raise don't end up holding -- that may be the end of the story. Unlike Oct 7, where Israel messed up on its defense, but now has a chance to respond.
Not sure what to do about that, but Iran seems the biggest danger, since it's so close to nukes.
For some reason I’m having trouble editing comments from my phone so hence there are tons of different comments here.
But yeah also Iran is a petrostate and is going to be absolutely fucked by the transition away from fossil fuels. It has a low TFR and dysgenics. So, yeah.
Qatar is also a petrostate so net zero mean they run out of money to fund Hamas. Lebanese Shia also have below replacement TFR just like Iran. And so on. I’m overall optimistic. Technology always favors developed high IQ nations. It’s a pro-civilization force. Good. These IQ gaps will get larger as advanced and tech friendly nations like Israel are early on embryo selection.
It’s a real concern, sure, but for various reasons I think Israel and the US and the UAE can live with an Iranian bomb the way the US and SK and Japan live with a North Korean bomb and India lives with a Pakistani bomb. Not great but technology and missile defense can shoot it down, and you can deter its use.
The Iranian regime isn’t suicidal. If Hamas had a nuke that would be a different story, but thankfully that’s not going to happen.
I’m sure Israel has been preparing for an Iranian nuke for a decade or more. Unlike 10/7 it won’t catch them off guard.
Even still, we’re talking about a small Iranian bomb that would probably be aimed badly and/or shot down by Israel’s great missile defense, and if it hit would destroy a few blocks of Tel Aviv. Awful but not the end of Israel.
Unless the nuke is a dud, it would destroy a lot more than a few blocks..
Yeah perhaps a few blocks is understating it. But we’re talking about one neighborhood of Tel Aviv and maybe 20K deaths. Definitely a five figure number. Awful but no second Holocaust. And in response Iran gets destroyed and people send Israel tons of aid.
And I should also add Iran is going to be totally fucked by its low tfr and decarbonization which will make oil worth nothing.
Good point about the diminishing capabilities of the Arab nations.
The world is going to look very different in one or two decades as overall population stasis takes hold, and global trade continues to decline. The decline won't be uniform and it's going to occur in places people don't expect. It's an outlier but I wouldn't be surprised if India made some moves in the Persian Gulf region that could have significant impact on the Iranians.
A UN resolution for demanding unconditional surrender of Hamas seems at least as reasonable as a demand for cease-fire.
I share your frustration. But I am much more pessimistic.
I have a hard time imagining the time when Israel could win - Hamas, Fatah, and Hezbollah have had the time to raise two generations committed to the destruction of Israel. They have a stable equilibrium, where they are funded from Muslim countries who don't want them to change, and from international institutions that won't ever insist they change. They hold their people hostage to keep the funding going, while ruthlessly suppressing any alternative leadership. There are some who think Israel could win by military conquest, but Israel is not constituted to rule over a captive people, and the Arabs wouldn't accept Jewish rule. And I can't imagine Israel trying to expel all the Arabs from the West Bank and Gaza, or achieving peace if they did.
I have a hard time imagining the time when Israel's enemies win, unless the US cuts Israel loose. Israelis realize they are in a do or die situation, and they won't knuckle under. They have the resources (including US technology) to hold off their enemies.
I am completely unable to imagine a two-state solution. Such a solution would require good faith on both sides. Hamas, Fatah, and Hezbollah clearly don't have such good faith, and will destroy any Palestinians who might. There are many Israelis, probably most, who have such good faith, but they have no one to deal with, and there seems to be an anti-agreement minority that can veto a solution if one is presented.
The long term solution is that the earth is consumed by fire when the sun becomes a red giant. Until then, I see nothing but continuing conflict.
We already have a two-state solution. It's called Jordan and was split off from the intended Israel by the British. The non-Jews in Israel could go live peacefully on any of many plots of land throughout the world, if only they were not semi-autonomous weapons in the hands of others. In the Arab world, there will always be a more extreme branch that attempts to wrest power from the less extreme by attacking the Jews in an ever more exaggerated manner.
This is not a problem that can be dealt with through simple political means. The only alternatives are for Jews to be protected from superior and more numerous forces - or die. Judaism as a culture holds no particular hope of survival. It's always on a random walk to extinction. As a religion, it adheres to hope fundamentally at odds with material probability. This is difficult to swallow or admit.
Among the many complications you are glossing over here, let's pick one: do you see a logistically viable path to a "swift and decisive victory" that does not entail writing off the remaining 100 or so hostages, leaving them for dead? If so, why?
Maybe you think Israel ought to leave them for dead. Ok, but that is not the position of the median Israeli voter. The crowds in recent Israeli anti-government demonstrations, urging Netanyahu to compromise more to get a hostage deal, may be wrongheaded but they are not "Queers for Palestine" or anything close.
All that is to say: if Western moderate squeamishness were the only thing standing between Israel and total victory, they would have had total victory by now.
The outcome if Israel loses is unlikely to be a replay of the Holocaust. It is more likely to resemble the aftermath of the Roman-Jewish wars, another in the long line of Jewish diasporas. Of course some Israelis could refuse to leave resulting in another Masada.
Perhaps the U.S. and Canada could give the Jewish Israelis something like the right of return. It would be beneficial to both countries.
One concern is that things aren't looking so great for Jews in the U.S. and Canada now. I hope it doesn't continue to get worse...
If your goal wasn't to persuade but to vent why did you push the "Submit" button after writing this post?
Venting isn’t venting if no one is around to hear it.
Arnold is allowed to have his pulpit, the same as the rest of us. We may not agree on politics in this instance but I still genuinely appreciate his posts on the topic and it makes me respect him more. He's a person, the same as everyone else.
Israel needs Europe to be in the American orbit. Being Europe in NATO, America controls the Mediterranean and Israel is safe.
Now, if America withdraws from Europe…
Excellently done, clear and precise. Of course, I agreed before I started reading . . . but if one can only write out of frustration, at least it is elegantly done.
"The barbaric thought comes from the social justice activists, but they are not organized for violence. The barbaric action comes from Islamic radicals. Put the two together and you get Queers for Palestine. "
I like you piece except "Queers for Palestine" seems unnecessarily and extremely antagonistic. Be that as it may, I get that "Queers for Palestine" might make sense if they looked at the situation as oppressor and the oppressed. That doesn't seem to be what you refer to here, or is it?
Well, you've managed to capture the frustration of more than yourself.