This is not an anti-Hamas post, this is not to discourage Palestinian resistance or to legitimise Israel. It is also well established that the violence, ethnic cleansing and land grabbing did not start on October 7th. My question is simple, what did Hamas expect to happen after October 7th? Like I cannot understand what this attack, even if everything went their way, would positively accomplish?
94 posts and 8 image replies omitted.>>2409952I think I understand why a Gazan kid would see the Israelis as monsters. His only experience is this big army showing up like the Empire in Star Wars or whatever and massacring his family members, destroying his city, and/or blowing his arm off. But I don't think it's really that analagous to the Rhodesians, because the Rhodesians saw
themselves as colonial settlers. The Israelis don't really feel that they
are that, and no matter how much you say they are will you convince them they're something they don't believe in about themselves. That shapes how they will react to certain strategies. It's much more existential for them and they will fight attempts to drive them out of there by force. Now, maybe, it might also come down to that, ultimately. But it's not a question of sympathy or not. It's trying to understand how they
think and how they
act without endorsing or excusing what they do.
>>2409969>I think I understand why a Gazan kid would see the Israelis as monsters.Is it really hard? I do too.
>His only experience is this big army showing up like the Empire in Star Wars or whatever and massacring his family members, destroying his city, and/or blowing his arm off. But I don't think it's really that analogous to the Rhodesians, because the Rhodesians saw themselves as colonial settlers. >The Israelis don't really feel that they are that, and no matter how much you say they are will you convince them they're something they don't believe in about themselves.Why is how they see themselves relevant? Yes, America is guilty of genocide, and I don't think it's right to say, "well the Americans saw themselves as entitled to all the lands of the Americas through 'Manifest Destiny'" but it is what it is. We can still call out the exterminationist settler-colonials philosophy without respect to the self-image of the perpetrators. We don't need to discuss that in respect to Nazis right? We don't have to go on about the kind gentle side of Hitler and the Reich's love of animals and children and etc. do we? It's irrelevant to the evil they commit to other humans.
>That shapes how they will react to certain strategies.Why is their reaction important? The important thing is the world's reaction. They are
.02% of the world population. Why is there opinion on anything important?
>>2409986>Why is how they see themselves relevant? I think I already explained that: how they see themselves will shape how they will react to attempts to drive them out of there by force. I don't understand why there's this seeming disinterest – among people who are dedicated to fighting Israel – in how their enemy thinks. How you can defeat your enemy if you don't understand them as something other than two-dimensional cartoon characters is not something I can easily answer. I can understand why a kid would think that, but at any rate, I don't think they're like the French where you can scare them back across the Mediterranean with some cafe bombings. I know you're not saying that, but these people are way more stubborn and ruthless than the French. The French wouldn't stick around and fight. But we know that.
>We can still call out the exterminationist settler-colonials philosophy without respect to the self-image of the perpetrators. It's not about making them feel good or "did you know the Israelis love their children too." I don't give a shit about that. Like this whole safe-space thing. That's very un-Israeli too. They're a very blunt and brutal people incapable of filtering anything (often to their detriment).
>Why is their reaction important? The important thing is the world's reaction. They are .02% of the world population. Why is there opinion on anything important?They're 50% of the population of Palestine. Give or take. But at the very least, I want to know how they will react because I want to be able to make reasonably accurate predictions of what they might do in reality, not just whatever I want to believe. People here called me a Zionist when the Al-Aqsa Flood operation started because, as impressive as it was, I was very pessimistic and believed that Israel was going to destroy Gaza. But people didn't want to hear that because they believe the Israelis wouldn't fight and just flee. It's not the case.
>>2410001>"we need to delve into the hearts of finance imperialist bourgeoisie to understand their deeper psychology" this is literally 99% of all Zionist Hollywood media propaganda. You are not radical at all, not even a radlib. You are the NPC programming meme with a brain full of liberal psyops, who somehow believes you can imagine revolutionary tactics by being a more astute indoor slave who is better at empathy with your white master
>>2410010>calling them a settler 3000000 times might be true but it does nothing,Socialists do nothing but somehow that's everyone else's fault for not doing enough homework to please the PMC redditor class 🙄
> the sooner people realize that the sooner we can do something better, something that might even workdegenerate Contrapoints nazis: "I'm a mature and rational adult in the room among children who foolishly reject my heroic debates and discussions about my slaves who I will never, ever deign to speak to"
>>2409969>I think I understand why a Gazan kid would see the Israelis as monsters.Yeah hmm real thinker that one, I guess you could maybe understand if you think about it really hard
>But I don't think it's really that analagous to the Rhodesians, because the Rhodesians saw themselves as colonial settlersSo did Zionists, at least in the beginning when settler colonialism wasnt so frowned upon. But times change and they adapt their rhetoric to the times. Some of the liberal ones might have deluded themselves into thinking they're not what they are, but they're gonna do what racist colonial settlers are gonna do. The idea that their self identification makes a meaningful difference between them and the colonial regime of Rhodesia reeks of idealism. You really think Rhodesians didn't fight tooth and nail to maintain their state? That it wasn't existential to them?
Now Israelis might be more fanatical or more deluded than the Rhodesians with their "the land was promised to us 3000 years ago and that means any rando Jew anywhere in the world is native to Palestine" thing, but it doesn't really make a material difference to combatting zionism imo
>>2410118>Their level of commitment matters What matters is Israel's position as an American imperial vassal. Their own subjective opinions don't really matter to the survivability of the state. As long as they are useful for American imperialism they will be supported by the most powerful military force in history. That is the deciding factor
>Many Israelis only speak Hebrew
>English is known as a foreign language by a significant proportion of the Israeli population as English is used widely in official logos and road signs alongside Hebrew and Arabic. It is estimated that over 85% of Israelis can speak English to some extent.[2] Russian is spoken by about 20% of the Israeli population, mainly due to the large immigrant population from the former Soviet Union. In addition, the 19th edition of Ethnologue lists 36 languages and dialects spoken through Israel.[3]
>According to a 2011 Government Social Survey of Israelis over 20 years of age, 49% report Hebrew as their native language, Arabic 18%, Russian 15%, Yiddish 2%, French 2%, English 2%, Spanish 1.6%, and 10% other languages (including Romanian, and Amharic, which were not offered as answers by the survey). >>2410121>Their own subjective opinions don't really matter to the survivability of the state.Yes they do, because if their resolve is strong they will need to be defeated more completely on the battlefield before they agree to a settlement that dissolves the Israeli state. Honestly just compare Germany in WW1 to WW2. In the first war they gave up without Germany itself being invaded or occupied. This experience had such an effect on them as a nation that their entire army and government had to be physically annihilated before they gave up in the second war. Its not idealism to suggest that ideas and psychology can have a significant impact on world events. Marxist materialism is dialectical, ideas and material factors influence each other, even though the latter predominates.
>>English is known as a foreign language by a significant proportion of the Israeli population As a second language. Most Germans speak English too but that doesn't mean they'd be willing to just pack up and move to Britain or have an easy time integrating there.
>>2410125It's just not the deciding factor how Israelis feel about it. If they didn't have the support of the US, they'd be gone in a few years no matter how much they fought tooth and nail for their ethnostate, its survivability would be untenable
In the end they are cowards man, they have no real resolve and can only do what they do because they have an overwhelming material advantage. Put any Israeli soldier one on one in a room with a resistance fighter and he's immediately shitting his pants and surrendering I guarantee it. All this bravado they have about Israel being the only place for them would evaporate immediately if they were actually feeling the heat and they'd fuck right off, probably mostly to America as that is their imperial motherland anyway
>As a second languageWell you said most Israelis speak only Hebrew didn't you? Doesn't matter if it's their first or second language, the point is they could easily integrate into any western nation they want to, they don't want to not because they only speak Hebrew, but because they want to colonize Palestine and build an ethnostate there instead
>>2410132>If they didn't have the support of the US, they'd be gone in a few years no matter how much they fought tooth and nail for their ethnostate, its survivability would be untenable Say that happens, and it happens somehow without any Israeli nukes going off. What then? You've got millions of Israelis who feel that they've just lost their country, they are convinced that they are the indigenous people of this land, that they are not safe anywhere else. How is this not a recipe for an endless insurgency that would mirror that of the Palestinians? How would this not compromise the viability of a Palestinian state?
>In the end they are cowards man, they have no real resolveI don't think that's true in the slightest. If it were they never would have been able to establish and maintain Israel in the first place when the odds were actually against them. It's wishful thinking to posit that they'll just give up when they haven't shown any indication of this.
>inb4 a lot of them left after October 7thI guarantee you that if they had been allowed huge numbers of Gazans would have run away too.
>Well you said most Israelis speak only Hebrew didn't you? Doesn't matter if it's their first or second language, the point is they could easily integrate into any western nation they want toI was mistaken about the first part, but again simply knowing English doesn't mean they can easily integrate into any Western country. There are still huge cultural differences. If millions of Germans suddenly appeared in England the mere fact that they speak English wouldn't prevent them from being seen as foreigners by the locals and themselves. That's not even getting into the millions of Israelis that have no European origins at all but are descended from MENA Jews.
>>2410136>Say that happens, and it happens somehow without any Israeli nukes going off. What then? You've got millions of Israelis who feel that they've just lost their country, they are convinced that they are the indigenous people of this land, that they are not safe anywhere else. How is this not a recipe for an endless insurgency that would mirror that of the Palestinians? How would this not compromise the viability of a Palestinian state?We're going off too far into abstract hypothetical. There's no point fantasizing about potentialities that are at least several decades away. The process of deziofication would take many many years and will obviously be a violent process because zionists will try resist any form of a Palestinian state being constructed, that is inescapable. But it's not really a question of israelis and their personal feelings about the matter.
>In the end they are cowards man, they have no real resolveI don't think that's true in the slightest. If it were they never would have been able to establish and maintain Israel in the first place when the odds were actually against them. It's wishful thinking to posit that they'll just give up when they haven't shown any indication of this.
Israelis are not some sort of monolith essential group that never changes. The original zios that founded the state through terrorism and genocide were a different breed than current israelis. But even then the idea that the cards were stacked against them is ridiculous, zionists paramilitaries were trained by the british, their equipment and violent capacity greatly exceeded that of their arab opponents. It's the arabs and specifically the Palestinians who were always on the backfoot
I say they are cowards because they are, they cannot fight Palestinians on an even ground and can only fight them through the insane material disparity they have imposed on them. You will never ever in a million years see an Israeli dog do something as brave and fearless as Palestinian resistance fighters do on the daily
>I guarantee you that if they had been allowed huge numbers of Gazans would have run away tooYeah because they're actually being genocided dog, Israelis started to run away when they were faced with a couple hundred deaths lol. Let alone if Palestinians actually started winning, you can't imagine. They know bro, they know what they're doing to those people and if they thought they could receive even a fraction of relatiation or inversion or revenge for what they've been subjecting them to, they will piss their pants immediately
>I was mistaken about the first part, but again simply knowing English doesn't mean they can easily integrate into any Western country. People who don't even speak English do it in the millions on the daily
>There are still huge cultural differencesHave you ever met an Israeli? They're just westerners bro, easiest assimilation ever
> If millions of Germans suddenly appeared in England the mere fact that they speak English wouldn't prevent them from being seen as foreigners by the locals and themselves. That's not even getting into the millions of Israelis that have no European origins at all but are descended from MENA JewsYou're overblowing the issue, millions of euroids live in each others countries, the entire west coast of france is inhabited by English people who don't speak french. These cultural differences are all non issues
>>2410117>The idea that their self identification makes a meaningful difference between them and the colonial regime of Rhodesia reeks of idealism … it doesn't really make a material difference to combatting zionism imoI want to push back on the vulgar materialism here that says an enemy's consciousness is irrelevant. It's like saying the enemy's morale is irrelevant. It shapes whether people are willing to recruit soldiers or sacrifice for something. Once ideas seize people, they become a material force. Nations which don't understand this always pay. An extreme example of this is Robert McNamara who reduced everything down to quantifiable (economic / technical) inputs into a computer. Like we dropped X tonnage of bombs and killed Y number of people = we're winning. It's not irrelevant but Vietnamese resolve and morale and self-identity were all very important factors which the "whiz kids" in the Pentagon didn't understand.
>You really think Rhodesians didn't fight tooth and nail to maintain their state? That it wasn't existential to them? The Rhodesians? Meh. Nah. You think the Rhodesians were that tough?
>>2410152>But even then the idea that the cards were stacked against them is ridiculous, zionists paramilitaries were trained by the british, their equipment and violent capacity greatly exceeded that of their arab opponents. That's true. The Israelis might have had more men in the field as well by absolute numbers even though they had a significantly smaller population because they recruited a large percentage of their population. That said, around 1% of the Jewish population died in the war, which is a lot.
>Have you ever met an Israeli? They're just westerners bro, easiest assimilation everI've met a few. One of them was an older guy who was more mysterious, another was a fat liberal gay guy who I thought was kind of pathetic because he was trying to convince the rest of the class (in college) that Israel wasn't the belligerent warmongering country that it is, and the one I spent the most amount of time with was a right-wing Russian who reminded me of this guy (he's playing a character but you get the idea), and very much the complete opposite of the previous guy. That ended up happening mostly by accident.
>>2410132>>2410136>languageMost of them understand and can speak English. I think the main thing is they speak to each other in Hebrew. They live their own lives in a mostly Hebrew-centric universe. They have a common culture and language.
>>2410648>I want to push back on the vulgar materialism here that says an enemy's consciousness is irrelevant.I'm not claiming that the enemy's consciousness is entirely irrelevant. It just doesn't weigh up to the overwhelming material support israel receives from the US. It doesn't really matter how convinced they are that it's their homeland when that is not the reason they are able to do what they do and get away with it. Without American aid they would have been crushed a while ago
>The Rhodesians? Meh. Nah. You think the Rhodesians were that tough?It's not their toughness that matters, it's that they have practically the same mentality and fought to preserve their respective ethnostates. It's just that Rhodesia was not that geopolitically important and thus nobody had a reason to prop it up
>I've met a few. One of them was an older guy who was more mysterious, another was a fat liberal gay guy who I thought was kind of pathetic because he was trying to convince the rest of the class (in college) that Israel wasn't the belligerent warmongering country that it is, and the one I spent the most amount of time with was a right-wing Russian who reminded me of this guy (he's playing a character but you get the idea), and very much the complete opposite of the previous guy. That ended up happening mostly by accident.Exactly, they fit right in
>Most of them understand and can speak English. I think the main thing is they speak to each other in Hebrew. They live their own lives in a mostly Hebrew-centric universe. They have a common culture and language.Sure, the point is that barely any of them speak just Hebrew and Hebrew alone tho
>>2410686>Without American aid they would have been crushed a while agoI don't think it's decisive. It's certainly important and a factor but there have been other cases of regimes which received a lot of American aid failing totally because their army didn't want to fight. This view that an external cause is the motive force in the movement of the "thing" derives from vulgar mechanical materialism rather than internally within Israeli society. This is not the ANA or South Vietnamese army.
>It's not their toughness that matters, it's that they have practically the same mentality and fought to preserve their respective ethnostates.I think the Israelis are tougher and smarter. The Israelis recruit most of the population into the military and socialize them in the army and bind them to this nationalist project. It's like some Robert Heinlein society. The Rhodesians were a bunch of bums by comparison.
>Exactly, they fit right in Well the fat gay guy would fit in around here. Can't argue with you there. I'd say the Russian guy was built a bit differently.
>Sure, the point is that barely any of them speak just Hebrew and Hebrew alone thoYeah. But my point is that Hebrew is their language. They have a language. A lot of people in the world are conversant in more than one language.
>>2410744>I don't think it's decisiveIm sorry but this is a bit crazy to me. The connection between Israel and the US is so so pervasive to the conflict. The billions of dollars that are spent on Israel every year, the weapons, the diplomatic stuff. The scale of it is insane, it's certainly a decisive factor, moreso than the psychology of the Israelis themselves in my opinion.
But you are right that america's involvement is not the motive force behind the zionist political project. They only really started showing interest in it post 67 anyway. It's moreso that since then the primary factor in enabling Israel to do what it wants to do, without repercussion, has been the US and that's without even going into all the other things that America has done in the region that benefit Israel. think about how different the situation would be if Sadam or Gaddafi were still around for instance.
>I think the Israelis are tougher and smarter. The Israelis recruit most of the population into the military and socialize them in the army and bind them to this nationalist project. It's like some Robert Heinlein society. The Rhodesians were a bunch of bums by comparison. Yeah the Rhodesians weren't much to gawk at sure, but had their political project been more beneficial or important to US imperialism, I would not consider it unlikely for it to have lasted quite a while longer
>Yeah. But my point is that Hebrew is their language. They have a language. A lot of people in the world are conversant in more than one language.Ehh it's a made up language, there's a reason only 50% of them speak it as their first language. It's not the same like other countries where the native language is spoken as a first language by pretty much over 95% of people
>>2410769>BTW, if you take what I'm saying as dooming or demoralizing, that's not my intention. Yeah im not taking it as such, we're just having a minor disagreement.
>I think they can be defeated, but they're a tough nut to crack by military means, although they were once driven out of Lebanon via guerrilla warfare. The IDF had a real problem with morale during that war, and also during the First Intifada, which was mostly a non-military uprising that emerged from the bottom-up in Palestinian society. Well I think their reaction to such events. Or even their reaction to oct 7th is indicative of a deep-seated fear and insecurity in their society. They only know how to respond to it with overwhelming force, because that's all they have really, force. But it's not real toughness, it's not bravery. It's easy to be "tough" in advanced armored tanks and fighter jets courtesy of daddy america, but it's something hollow, without that I really don't think they'd have much fighting spirit left other than the crazy lunatic ones.
>It'd be interesting to trace the origin and frequency of "IDF soldiers speaking out" type groups and when those began to occur. I'd take a guess but suspect it started becoming more frequent around then.From what I know it's mostly something that appeared after the second intifada with orgs like breaking the silence n shit
>>2411064This is what most palestinian activism and organizing in the west is about dumbfuck
>Muh Mlismobsessed
>>2411178 (me)
Man I even forgot to mention the iron dome, such a decisive advantage for israel to conduct its genocide and all the other shit they do. Purely sponsored by the US
>>2411178>Im sorry but this is a bit crazy to me. The connection between Israel and the US is so so pervasive to the conflict. The billions of dollars that are spent on Israel every year, the weapons, the diplomatic stuff. The scale of it is insane, it's certainly a decisive factor, moreso than the psychology of the Israelis themselves in my opinion. You're not wrong that it's insane, but America blowing a trillion dollars on a war and it being a total wash is not unprecedented.
>Ehh it's a made up language, there's a reason only 50% of them speak it as their first language. It's not the same like other countries where the native language is spoken as a first language by pretty much over 95% of peopleThere have been many immigrants from the Jewish diaspora who spoke other languages. But there's evidently an attraction to it among Jews who have emigrated to it. Like this is a country where the road signs are in several languages but one of them is a Jewish language, which is the main language of the country. The national holidays are Jewish holidays.
>Or even their reaction to oct 7th is indicative of a deep-seated fear and insecurity in their society. I absolutely agree with that.
>t's easy to be "tough" in advanced armored tanks and fighter jets courtesy of daddy america, but it's something hollow, without that I really don't think they'd have much fighting spirit left other than the crazy lunatic ones.Well the tanks are Israeli. They make a lot of weapons and made it a point to try (airplanes are more difficult) to manufacture at least one weapon in each category themselves. Like they have their own shoulder-fired missile. Things of that nature. And then they'd sell these weapons to all kinds of crazy governments around the world.
>>2411394>I think the biggest issue in the long term would be governing Israelis in a state where Jews and Palestinians have equal rights. I think a contradictory aspect of guerrilla war is that a very strong power can be defeated by ostensibly "weak" people. There's something about being strong, while fighting the weak, that one becomes weak during that process. Soldiers often want to prove themselves, but they can't do that against weak opponents, so over time there is a decline in military effectiveness. They get "rusty." And on the opposite side of the dialectic, the ostensibly weaker side can become strong by fighting a strong opponent.
I wonder if this is happening to the IDF now. From what I can tell, there's really not much fighting going on in Gaza. They rarely see Hamas except occasionally through drones, and then every few days an Israeli soldier is picked off or blown up. Hamas are doing very precise, targeted hit-and-run attacks. Meanwhile, the Israelis are just bulldozing everything in areas where they're operating, and starving the civilian population. Morally it's appalling, but there are also anecdotal reports from Israeli media that the soldiers are burned out. I was watching a report from one of their channels interviewing Israeli soldiers in the strip and they looked exhausted. Around the middle here. I don't think it was like that in the beginning. The country balled up into a fist.
>>2411064>"When you get genocided you shouldn't kill your oppressors or ur nationalist, especially when you are brown and hecking ayrab and they are white n uruopeon."brought to you by your local gusano, iraqileftcom
ALERT ALERT iraqileftcom has a major hitler penis withdrawal
>>2411948I'm starting to think nationality/background/imagination does not validate trash like that either.
Xi, liberate them with your Dongfeng missiles and Chengdu stealth superiority fighters
>>2409148Everyone with half a brain and some connection to reality will eventually be called a zigger, same with tankie
Lmao good
We can easily know our own
>>2409390>Israel was going to be destroyed in his lifetime It will, if he got 50 years.
There are serious concerns if even the US itself will make it more than a couple decades.
I don't think this system has too much gas in the tank but we will have to see obviously.
>>2409031I didn't know you were expected to justify resisting genocide (note here, tactical disagreement is not "justify yourself")
In terms of justice it is very very simple
All action against NATO is defensive in nature, righteous and justified.
Not gonna argue this point. Thank you for your attention.
>>2412025 (me)
Ok to be slightly more precise but using excessive words it's NATO + their fellow gangsters (allegedly neutral westoids, Japan, Israel ofc)
>>2410805Of course they knew something was gonna happen. This is not debatable, it's in official investigations. The question is to what extent they approved of it and deliberately held back.
Such and such number of civ casualties
is useful when your dead are worth hundreds of times (limit unknown) the "barbarians" in the eyes of the populace and w*stern allies.
>>2409746 is right. The point is a desperate attempt to try to do anything to improve the situation.
To be honest, the October 7 uprising played into Israel's plans far more than it did for Hamas. You could be a conspiracist and say that it was ordered by Israel, or you could say that Israel made the attacks a far bigger deal than what Hamas expected it to be.
Bibi needed that war to last longer in government, but that is not the structural reason. The structural reason is American decline and the way Israel is trying to prepare for the day free American money and guns won't come in anymore. Demolishing Palestine, Syria, Hezbollah was required to try to make the situation more stable as Israel will have to rely on its own economy, which is tiny as is appropriate for such a tiny country. In no way can it sustain that kind of military activity under capitalism. It may prove impossible to actually stabilize the situation, as Palestine supporters clearly want, but only real events can prove that. Communists and radical liberals might just be far more supportive of that struggle than the vast majority of Arabs.
>>2411064Israelis
chose to be killers of Palestinian children. As in, a huge chunk of Israel's population was born abroad and migrated there from countries that weren't even trying to attack them. The largest group is Soviet people who decided to go there in the 90s for economic reasons. They weren't even disproportionately poor. Most of these people support eastern european liberalism, which was the reason these economic reasons arose in the first place. A secondary motivation was also that they wanted to become western and those backward slavs clearly weren't going to make the cut, so they learned a dead language and adopted a made-up nationality to be trve westerners. Millions of people who were just as Jewish as these Israelis remained where they were since they weren't psychopaths who couldn't care less about the world as long as they get their money. They self-selected for being the most vile people.
>>2411965>Shine on you crazy diamondI'm rolling a boulder uphill.
>>2411962>It will, if he got 50 years … I don't think this system has too much gas in the tank but we will have to see obviously.Hey, I'm not ruling it out.
>>2412236>In no way can [Israel] sustain that kind of military activity under capitalism. It may prove impossible to actually stabilize the situation, as Palestine supporters clearly want, but only real events can prove that.I don't know the answer to this (and might also be where Marxism comes in useful) is to what extent does Israeli capitalism run on war in the first place, and to what extent that is sustainable or not. This is the paradox of it. Because I don't get the sense that Israel seeks stability at all, rather it prefers this constant level of instability, because for whatever reason they feel like they can manage it better. In the West Bank for example, the Israelis are constantly trying to provoke the Palestinians into lashing out. David Graeber wrote about this:
<And you realize: you’re going to have to live like this forever. There is no “political process.” It will never end. Barring some kind of divine intervention, you can expect to be facing exactly this sort of terror and absurdity for the rest of your natural life. But when someone does snap under the pressure, and, say, stabs a soldier at a checkpoint, or joins a cell to shoot at settlers, there’s no one specific act one can point to that seems to justify what seems like an act of disproportionate madness … What sort of Palestinians, then, are the occupation authorities trying to create? Clearly not docile and obedient ones. There would be no reason to engineer a life of continual hardship, terror, and humiliation—to ensure, for instance that practically every Palestinian mother and father has to worry if their 12-year-old son or daughter will come home safely from school, or is already lying shackled and blindfolded in a concrete cell—if one were trying to pacify a former enemy. The only answer that makes sense is that the Israel forces want the Palestinians to seethe; they want there to be resistance; but the also want to ensure that political resistance is completely ineffective. They want a population that is compliant on a day-to-day basis, but that periodically explodes, individually or collectively, in a unstrategic and uncoordinated fashion that can represented to the outside world as irrational demonic madness.
<And why would they wish to do this? Almost every Arab political analyst I talked to considered the answer self- evident. Israel’s economy has become largely dependent on the high-tech arms trade, and the supply of complex electronic “security” systems. Israel is today the world’s fourth largest arms exporter, after the US, Russia, and UK (it has recently pushed back France to #5). This is actually quite a feat for such a tiny country. But as everyone also hastens to add: Israeli arms and security systems have an enormous advantage over their rivals, one Israeli firms never fail to emphasize in their promotional literature. They are extensively field-tested. This new type of shell that was used to destroy tunnels in Gaza! This new type of random-distribution tear gas dispenser was successfully used against protestors in the Balata refugee camp. This new type of laser-detection device has repeatedly foiled attacks on settlers. Arab resistance has become a key economic resource for Israeli capital, and were it to completely quiet down, the export economy would take an immediate hit.
<If bullying is to be defined as, in its essence, a form of aggression designed to produce a reaction that can then be used as retroactive justification for the initial act of aggression itself, then the Israeli Occupation has taken bullying and turned it into a principle of governance. Everything is designed to provoke. The provocations are daily. They are ugly and humiliating. But they are also designed to fly just under the point of flagrant, undeniable aggression, where you can claim they were not even, precisely, an “attack,” but like the schoolyard bully who’s constantly subtly poking and jabbing and kicking his victim, hoping for some outraged burst of ineffective rage that can get the victim hauled before the principal.https://davidgraeber.org/articles/hostile-intelligence-reflections-from-a-visit-to-the-west-bank/ Unique IPs: 24