Collected thoughts about Israel/Gaza
17 Dec 2023 - 13 Apr 2025
- I seem to am expected to have opinions on the present conflict between Israel and Palestinians. I do of course, but not very interesting ones – basically the same view as most vaguely leftist Jews who aren't hardcore anti-Zionists (like Jewish Voice for Peace ) – we deplore the horrific violence from both sides, deplore the occupation and denial of Palestinian rights, but do not want Israel to disappear. Some kind of peaceful solution that respects the rights of both peoples is obviously necessary and the only way to resolve the situation. A two-state solution, which sounds so simple, so obviously the only right answer, nd also fucking impossible. Given that it is impossible, the only practical action one can do is to work for peace, by supporting actual binational peace efforts like Peace Now (JVP I don't think is actually interested in peace) or Standing Together.
- Alright, that's my boring and unoriginal and not particularly well-informed opinion. Also most of my blood relatives are Israelis; I'm not that close with them but it colors my thoughts obviously.
- What follows are some perhaps more interesting views. They are in some sense attempts to go meta, to avoid having to join the conflict on one side or another. Because what would be the point of that? There are no shortage of people ready to enlist in the base-level conflict. They aren't solutions, but they are sort of attempts to redefine the problem.
- I wrote this around November 2023 but didn't publish it for awhile since it could be read as making light of a really terrible situation. The situation has only gotten worse, but I figured I might as well put my thoughts out there.
Climate change will "solve" the problem
- A grim theory: In 50 years, maybe 30 years, climate change will have advanced to the point where the whole middle east region is uninhabitable. This will cause a refugee crisis that makes the current Gaza situation look like a day in the park, but at least it will solve the specific problem of two people fighting over a specific scrap of territory.
We are all colonizers
- Who are Americans to be righteous about colonialism? All of us save those of indigenous ancestry are here thanks to its operation. Europeans came to this continent and proceeded to cheerfully push the natives out of the way through slaughter, forced migration, and ethnic cleansing on the scale that Likud can only dream of. My lovely house in California is on land that once belonged to the Ohlone. I feel kind of bad about that, but I didn't kill them and what are we supposed to do about it at this late date? Land acknowledgements seem like largely empty gestures – we're here because we pushed the previous occupants out, and there's no just restitution for that, it's just the way things are.
- This is a view that is both deeply reactionary and (disturbingly) kind of true. History is full of weak people being overrun, slaughtered, and/or expelled by stronger groups. It is only our present liberal moment, where we think that everybody has "rights", that is weird. Nobody has rights unless they have the guns to enforce them.
- By "deeply reactionary" I mean that this is exactly the stuff of Nazi race theory and all other forms of group-based conflict theory. Hitler viewed everything as a struggle between races for domination; this was a very worked-out worldview. Strength is all, virtues like justice and mercy are simply irrelevant to the all consuming struggle between racial groups. There's a pitiless logic to such views, repellent though they be.
- This article The Zionist Dilemma - by Philippe Lemoine makes the case that Israel's problem is mostly bad timing -- a colonialist project that unfortunately arrived just as the anti-colonialist movement was getting underway. If it had happened 50 years earlier, well, nobody would give a shit about the losing side.
- And of course this kind of thinking found its way into zionism , which from its founding was composed of both leftists and fascist elements. [hm need to say more or less]
Refactoring war
- I wrote Refactoring War in 2014, during an earlier instance of conflict in Gaza. You know the phrase, "blessed are the peacemakers"? Well, what if you considered the warmakers as all being on the same side, opposed to the peacemakers? The peacemakers are not just blessed, they are your true allies, no matter what side of the unrefactored conflict they are on.
- It is perfectly possible and consistent to oppose anybody who relishes the killing of children, and this includes elements on both the Israeli and Palestinian side. Both sides in this conflict include innocent civilians and also those whose job it is to kill innocent civilians. You don't have to ally yourself with either side.
- You can be an anarchist and say, fuck all governments and all gangs of murderers, which are of course just different forms of the same thing. It's easy! I suppose it will get you labeled as an unserious person, but have you seen what the serious people are doing these days?
The only thing that’s been a worse flop than the organization of nonviolence has been the organization of violence.
- — Joan Baez
