You are 100% correct to ask all of those questions, and because our money is being given to both sides of this war in some capacity I feel that we have a right to that information.
I have no idea how to go about finding accurate information, but I absolutely agree with your assessment of the emotional reactions on both sides. I think that the underlying issue is that governments have to lie to convince people to either directly kill other human beings that they don't know or fund those killings.
Re the vitriol on the topic: most humans appear incapable of understanding that multiple arguments supporting opposing narratives can be true at once.
Would I want to live in Gaza under the boot of Israel? Fuck no.
Does the taking of human shields mean you get an unlimited military advantage against an opponent who at least has to be able to sell that they are the good guys? That cannot be allowed to be true for game theoretic reasons.
I denounce all actors involved, and have nothing but compassion for the innocents on both sides who live in hell because of the psychopaths they share a culture with.
I have no answers, only the same questions. People like Douglas Murray, who I have long relied on for factual and reasoned thought on many topics, have disappointed me on this one. Even Glenn Greenwald is unmistakably on a side, his the anti-Israel one, although he does a better job than most of at least trying to appear objective. I feel like one of very few who has no strong feelings for either side, other than to condemn barbarity wherever it is found.
Murray has made a name for himself being anti-woke and defending Western values like free speech. But now he wants new hate crime laws enacted in the UK in order to ban pro-Palestine marches.
He is, apparently, receiving funding from the Embassy of Israel through his work with the Henry Jackson Society. So, while I'm sure his stance is one he has taken with conviction, there is also a bit of an agenda. He's not an entirely neutral actor.
You are right to be thinking critically about this. Speech to video AI exists now, so it is possible for any of the events of this war to have been faked.
I cannot recommend Peggy Hall/The Healthy American's substack highly enough for deep dive critical thinking about how to discern what is real vs fake when it comes to war between Israel and Hamas.
Here's my view: the Israel/Gaza offensive is intentional mind-f**kery again. I'm convinced the Oct 7th event was an inside job-- a PSYOP of the first degree (that acronym isn't around for nothing). From the many articles I've read on the topic, I believe that Hamas is a MOSSAD/CIA creation and Oct 7th fulfilled the same function that 9/11 did (excuse to go to war).
So many details of that day were "off" such as border security having been lifted, and many others including the hours-long non-response. I watched several of those "kidnapping victim" videos and I swear to God those people were making it up; there were too many leaks of dupers' delight there. But the "ordinary" Israeli citizens aren't in on the hoax, of course. They're just being played like all the rest of us, only to their greater disadvantage for now being freshly made the target of thriving anti-Semitism.
Joanie, there is a Substack written by a man named N.S. Lyons. His edition analyzing how the Hamas attack succeeded so remarkably is stunning, and it's open to the public to read.
It was no false flag. Lyons takes the reader through what happened step by step. What did happen is that the most sophisticated territorial defense system in the world was breached with years of planning, espionage, and physical means so pedestrian you will be astonished.
Hi Bobby. I read the article; Lyons makes a fairly convincing case which requires an adjustment of my stated position. At least, I'm open to the possibility that the Israeli government was in the end, guilty only of a botch-up due to its overconfidence in high-tech defence rather than more flexible, common-sense manpower.
But two things strike me: one his disbelief that "Israeli Jews were deliberately betrayed and allowed to be murdered by their own government" reveals to me a willful naivete of Israel's ruthless Zionism, in cahoots with British and US imperialist prerogatives, that has consistently expelled, persecuted and brutalized the "Other". For one thing, Innocent Israelis have suffered the worst onslaught of any nation of imposed deadly vaccine mandates. All governments knew darn well that the vaccine roll-out was suspicious at best. But secondly, they are a disarmed people (as at least 2 others commented). Had the people living so close to the border been equipped to defend themselves, the outcome would have been entirely different. Why, one must ask, has a nation of formerly horribly persecuted people, been infantilized if not essentially emasculated in this manner? Like us in Canada. Only governments out to control and tyrannize their own populations.
About your first point, we are in agreement. About your second, remember, most of the southern kibbutzniks were peaceniks. It's heartbreaking that they were as naive as they were. It's the "if only we show them we mean them no harm, they'll be friendly to us" sensibility in dealing with intractable haters.
Do you remember Idi Amin Dada, the butcher and cannibal of Uganda in the 1970s? My family knew a freelance journalist who believed that Amin's bad press in the EuroAmerican world was primarily a matter of misunderstanding, and in a gesture of kibbutznik - like idealism, he went to Uganda to interview Amin and allow him to tell his side of things.
Yes, I do remember that monster; I gather your family friend was murdered by him, then. Awful. It reminds me of the two young Swedish women, about 7 years ago, out to prove all humans good, only to have their heads violently removed in the Moroccan countryside. And around the same time, a couple was murdered as they cycled across Turkey or Iran, I can't recall where. And virtue-signalling Americans called for "sanctuary cities" which I think they're all greatly regretting now.
But we know now that the Taliban was created by the US. And I do believe that to one extent or another, so was Hamas. Notwithstanding the generational bloodthirstiness of the Islamists, we can legitimately wonder how much those evil flames have been fanned, much the same way that racism is just not allowed to die its natural death in North America. Why? Because it is so useful for dividing and controlling us. Always.
The way we must preface our questions with a veritable novel of "not all" and "I'm not inferring to..." is extraordinarily exhausting. We the people can't even agree on whether or not the rape and murder of thousands is good or bad.
Growing up, I saw my grandfather, Julius, take measures to hide he was Jewish. He was a well respected businessman. "What's the big deal?", I thought. "They're colleagues, they wouldn't care."
There is so much bigotry in so many ethnicities. I once had a friend who was Irish Catholic. She had immigrated to the US and married another Irishman. They hid the fact that she had been married before, had two children and then divorced because her husband would have been seen as having bought “used goods” by marrying a divorcee with two children. No one in their Irish Catholic circle of friends ever knew she had these adult children until she became terminally ill. Somewhere, somehow, people need to realize we all bleed red and are all children created in God’s image and deserve peace and happiness and a life without judgement for being of one group or the other.
Re how to know what is true. We look for evidence and for people who are trying to tell the truth. It’s the same process at looking at a narcissistic smear campaign.
Living in a cluster B family and coming through it relatively sane can give you important skills in truth finding. Those skills include seeing through the character assassinations, smear campaigns and gaslighting that one is subject to in such families. To do this one often becomes hyper -sensitised to lying and laser focused on clues to truth. One looks primarily at facts and sharpening one’s reasoning about them (I began the fight for freedom against my Nmum at 14 by arguing with her against what I was beginning to realise was pathological lying). Ava and I have tried to do the same to find the truth through the lies, misinformation and distortions around the Hamas-Israel conflict. We’re fairly confident we’re on the right track.
The roots of this 1000 year old conflict are so deeply tangled & embedded that I don’t believe that those living in the region know what’s actually going on & how much they are being played by the modern day psychopaths.
Thank you for raising these questions and providing a forum for us to speak freely and compassionately. I’m very conflicted here, and I really cannot tell what are and aren’t facts and truth. It does feel like being mind controlled by my (cluster B?) father and my extreme religious upbringing. I was never sure if up was down and black was white. I also have experience being bullied and bullying in return. I sense that the majority population on BOTH ‘sides’ of this divide just want to live in peace and can’t get out from under their corrupt and deranged leadership in a holy war. I sense evil and continued trauma.
For what it's worth, I have two friends from Palestine. An older couple. They've lived in the US for a long time and are lovely, gentle people. One of them lost a brother and five other family members all at once in the airstrike on St. Porphyrius Church in Gaza. I share your concerns and your reticence. And I check the news every few days to see if those precious Bibas children have been rescued from Hamas. From my very limited vantage point, it seems to be a catastrophe from every angle. Ultimately I am (mostly) in the dark.
I have tried to get some information from my Arab Christian acquaintances because I feel like they have a unique vantage point. They are Arabs and Palestinians and have family who still live in Gaza and the West Bank (or other mostly Muslim countries) but because they are Christians they are at risk from Muslim Extremists as well. It has been very hard to get a straight answer from them.
Yes. We attend an Antiochian Orthodox church. Our priest is originally from a war-torn country in the Middle East. The friends I mentioned are parishioners. I don't want to pry, but when the opportunity arises, I hope to gain a better understanding through speaking with them about it. I think our priest will be honest with us, and maybe I just need to go ahead and ask him.
Nua - I'm OCA but my son and DIL attend an Antiochian church, but their priest is a convert. And my new son-in-law's godfather is *edited* Syrian but grew up in Egypt. One of the things they have in common is that none of them are protesting "to the river to the sea", etc. They are avoiding stuff like that as far as I can tell. We all want peace. I would ask your priest privately. I know they are in a tough situation. They don't want to cause division in their parish. Covid was bad enough.
Thank you for even asking the questions, while knowing how emotionally charged it is for people. I think the fact that putting the questions out there because you sincerely want answers, ties your stomach up in knots because you anticipate so much ugliness, even possibly from your own supporters, tells us how well and truly fucked we all are. (Sorry for the poorly constructed sentence!)
Disclaimer: for the rest of this post, when I say "you", I mean in in the universal sense, not directed at Josh, specifically.
My 2 cents is this: what's freaking me out is that no one wants peace anymore. In anything. Everybody wants to pick a side, then rain holy hell on anyone who disagrees, even though these are deeply complicated situations that stretch back generations, well beyond recent events. This should be taken into account with what happened in Gaza, just like it needs to be taken into account with what happened in Ukraine.
There is HISTORY that must be taken into account in all of these conflicts. If people don't want to look at it in its entirety, then they're not ready to truly understand. This shit is messy and unpleasant, and just like any other conflict between people in other countries, we Americans cannot relate in any way to a war-torn region of the world. We are pampered, comfortable, and too distracted by our very selves to truly understand the horror happening around the world. We will never know what is like to be one of these very real human beings trying not to die on a daily, hourly basis.
No matter which side you choose (and really, unless we're personally involved, what right do we have to choose a side in any of these conflicts?) I think we should all take a step back from the bloodthirsty circus and attempt to regain our humanity.
Try to remember how much propaganda we're all drowning in every day. It's meant to outrage and demoralize us to the point that we become all-consumed with bloodlust, or we become hollow, lifeless shells of human beings and give up entirely.
I'd ask you to check your moral compass, either way. If you can justify what Hamas did on that day, you need to have a good hard look at yourself. If you believe that rape and murder are the actual "cost of freedom", then admit that's who you are, and take the lumps that come from it. Only blind fanatics will excuse your position.
On the flip side, whether you believe the official death tolls or not, if you can't recognize a wildly disproportionate response when you see one, then you also need to have a good think about what you're willing to tolerate in the name of "justice" and ask yourself if it really sits right with you.
Is an eye for an eye a good response? Even if that seems reasonable to you, we passed the 1,200 dead Israelis = 1,200 dead Palestinians many thousands of dead humans ago... by a LOT, by any count. Israeli children died on October 7th. Since that day, Palestinian children have died and they're still being killed, maimed, and starved for months on end. That's the part that's not sitting right with many reasonable and empathetic people.
I'm half Ashkenazi Jew, I'm not an antisemite for being appalled at Israel's response. On some level, anyone who's not an absolute zealot must objectively look at this situation and see that the bombing has to stop.
Where are the calls from our leaders for peace? Why is America funding both sides? Why aren't our leaders stopping this, when they so easily could by turning off the cash spigot? Could it be that once again, America is running its own agenda and sees no upside to demanding peace? It's coming up on 5 months. How can this not be enough already? Will it unrape the women? Will it bring back Israel's innocent dead? Are there not innocent Palestinians dying right now? I'm so tired of the killing. I don't care who's doing it or why anymore, I just want it to fucking STOP already.
My sympathy for Israel is now wearing thin and I have a hard time seeing how the continued destruction of Gaza could ever be justified at this point.
In fighting monsters, we become monsters at the cost of our own humanity. In time, there will be nothing left but monsters. Then what?
I'm sure that I don't understand all the nuances of this conflict, but I believe that we do need to be clear that Hamas is NOT the Palestinian people, Hamas is a terrorist organization that has taken over and occupied Gaza. As near as I can tell, the people who live there need to be liberated from Hamas. Every organization that was supposed to help them, from the UN to Western nations giving aid, to the other Arab states, have victimized them by allowing Hamas to steal the aid that was given and to infiltrate and corrupt the institutions that were supposed to help the people. Why would Hamas need to build such elaborate tunnel complexes if they were just running the government in Gaza? It appears that they stole huge amounts of the aid given to Gaza and diverted it into weapons, tunnels, and high living for Hamas leadership. Hamas has stated many times that it intends to destroy Israel completely and kill every citizen. What is Israel supposed to do about that? It has tried appeasement, aid, giving Gaza electricity, food, water, and all they have gotten is death threats from Hamas. I do not think they have a choice except to destroy Hamas as a functioning organization, in any way possible. This can allow the Palestinian people of Gaza a chance, anyway, of perhaps building some kind of society for themselves, although I do not hold out much hope that they can do that. The other Arab states have made it quite clear that they don't want to help the Palestinians in any way, they just want to use them as a political pawn when it is convenient. That is not our problem, and it's not Israel's problem either, really, it's something that the other Arab states need to figure out. But I think, sadly, in reality this will continue to fester as it has for thousands of years. If you look back at history, the Near East-Middle East has seen almost constant conflict since the first people settled here 5000 years ago.
I think Darryl Cooper has done the most in-depth coverage of the history leading up to this event. He covers this in a 20+ hour podcast series. It’s excellent.
Darryl is a pleasure to listen to and I believe he's one of the best contemporary historians here on Substack. He studies deeply and is refreshingly honest when he takes on a subject. Never a waste of precious time when there is so much excellent content available.
Darryl's podcast is great. I've yet to listen to the 20+ hours series though. He's a great storyteller so I'm sure it's worth it! He does a good job covering topics in a non linear way. Ive made it through "Black's and Jews" and currently listening to "God's Socialist". His new series on slavery doesn't disappoint either.
I just listened to Douglas Murray say that if any other country in the West had been attacked like that, there would be no "proportionality" discussion. I think he's correct. After 911, there was not that discussion. Hamas is evil. Innocent people are hurt. We can't trust any media or government organization to tell us the truth of what's happening about anything. Not sure where that leaves us. But I'm glad there are other people who see it.
My two cents: people can talk about proportionality if they want to. But Hamas deserves to get laughed in the face when they try to do it. When you take a bat to a hornets' nest, don't complain when you get stung. And don't go on and on about how you figured you'd get maybe a couple dozen stings, but not 100+. It doesn't work that way.
Right? Let’s tangle with the IDF when we are logistically and strategically inferior in terms of military force. What could go wrong?? Oh, I know… let’s use mainstream media to fight the battle we instigated to garner sympathy and pull in the big guns. We can sit back and enjoy the show.
Thank you Josh! I have been wanting to know these questions too. I suspect part of the reason it is so hard to get to the truth is because the media narrative wants to turn real-life conflicts into a Disney movie: "Good guy vs Bad Guy" and sometimes they're both bad! Or both have very bad players or just plain complicated. Thanks for starting this conversation.
You are 100% correct to ask all of those questions, and because our money is being given to both sides of this war in some capacity I feel that we have a right to that information.
I have no idea how to go about finding accurate information, but I absolutely agree with your assessment of the emotional reactions on both sides. I think that the underlying issue is that governments have to lie to convince people to either directly kill other human beings that they don't know or fund those killings.
To quote my beloved Sylvester Stallone from “Rambo”…They(Hamas) drew first blood.” Play bitch games, win bitch prizes.
How can you say that when the conflict has been going on for 1,000 years?
Oh please. You”re saying that the Hamas attack was a tit for tat? Retaliation for a targeted attack by Israel?
I’m sure you thought OJ was innocent as well.. and if not, it was just payback for years of black oppression by the police.
Nope. You're projecting onto me things that aren't there.
I'm not going to engage with you if you're going to be nasty.
Re the vitriol on the topic: most humans appear incapable of understanding that multiple arguments supporting opposing narratives can be true at once.
Would I want to live in Gaza under the boot of Israel? Fuck no.
Does the taking of human shields mean you get an unlimited military advantage against an opponent who at least has to be able to sell that they are the good guys? That cannot be allowed to be true for game theoretic reasons.
I denounce all actors involved, and have nothing but compassion for the innocents on both sides who live in hell because of the psychopaths they share a culture with.
I have no answers, only the same questions. People like Douglas Murray, who I have long relied on for factual and reasoned thought on many topics, have disappointed me on this one. Even Glenn Greenwald is unmistakably on a side, his the anti-Israel one, although he does a better job than most of at least trying to appear objective. I feel like one of very few who has no strong feelings for either side, other than to condemn barbarity wherever it is found.
Murray has made a name for himself being anti-woke and defending Western values like free speech. But now he wants new hate crime laws enacted in the UK in order to ban pro-Palestine marches.
He is, apparently, receiving funding from the Embassy of Israel through his work with the Henry Jackson Society. So, while I'm sure his stance is one he has taken with conviction, there is also a bit of an agenda. He's not an entirely neutral actor.
You are right to be thinking critically about this. Speech to video AI exists now, so it is possible for any of the events of this war to have been faked.
I cannot recommend Peggy Hall/The Healthy American's substack highly enough for deep dive critical thinking about how to discern what is real vs fake when it comes to war between Israel and Hamas.
Here's my view: the Israel/Gaza offensive is intentional mind-f**kery again. I'm convinced the Oct 7th event was an inside job-- a PSYOP of the first degree (that acronym isn't around for nothing). From the many articles I've read on the topic, I believe that Hamas is a MOSSAD/CIA creation and Oct 7th fulfilled the same function that 9/11 did (excuse to go to war).
So many details of that day were "off" such as border security having been lifted, and many others including the hours-long non-response. I watched several of those "kidnapping victim" videos and I swear to God those people were making it up; there were too many leaks of dupers' delight there. But the "ordinary" Israeli citizens aren't in on the hoax, of course. They're just being played like all the rest of us, only to their greater disadvantage for now being freshly made the target of thriving anti-Semitism.
This.
Joanie, there is a Substack written by a man named N.S. Lyons. His edition analyzing how the Hamas attack succeeded so remarkably is stunning, and it's open to the public to read.
It was no false flag. Lyons takes the reader through what happened step by step. What did happen is that the most sophisticated territorial defense system in the world was breached with years of planning, espionage, and physical means so pedestrian you will be astonished.
Hi Bobby. I read the article; Lyons makes a fairly convincing case which requires an adjustment of my stated position. At least, I'm open to the possibility that the Israeli government was in the end, guilty only of a botch-up due to its overconfidence in high-tech defence rather than more flexible, common-sense manpower.
But two things strike me: one his disbelief that "Israeli Jews were deliberately betrayed and allowed to be murdered by their own government" reveals to me a willful naivete of Israel's ruthless Zionism, in cahoots with British and US imperialist prerogatives, that has consistently expelled, persecuted and brutalized the "Other". For one thing, Innocent Israelis have suffered the worst onslaught of any nation of imposed deadly vaccine mandates. All governments knew darn well that the vaccine roll-out was suspicious at best. But secondly, they are a disarmed people (as at least 2 others commented). Had the people living so close to the border been equipped to defend themselves, the outcome would have been entirely different. Why, one must ask, has a nation of formerly horribly persecuted people, been infantilized if not essentially emasculated in this manner? Like us in Canada. Only governments out to control and tyrannize their own populations.
I'm grateful for such a thoughtful reply.
About your first point, we are in agreement. About your second, remember, most of the southern kibbutzniks were peaceniks. It's heartbreaking that they were as naive as they were. It's the "if only we show them we mean them no harm, they'll be friendly to us" sensibility in dealing with intractable haters.
Do you remember Idi Amin Dada, the butcher and cannibal of Uganda in the 1970s? My family knew a freelance journalist who believed that Amin's bad press in the EuroAmerican world was primarily a matter of misunderstanding, and in a gesture of kibbutznik - like idealism, he went to Uganda to interview Amin and allow him to tell his side of things.
Robert Seidele, d. 1971
Yes, I do remember that monster; I gather your family friend was murdered by him, then. Awful. It reminds me of the two young Swedish women, about 7 years ago, out to prove all humans good, only to have their heads violently removed in the Moroccan countryside. And around the same time, a couple was murdered as they cycled across Turkey or Iran, I can't recall where. And virtue-signalling Americans called for "sanctuary cities" which I think they're all greatly regretting now.
But we know now that the Taliban was created by the US. And I do believe that to one extent or another, so was Hamas. Notwithstanding the generational bloodthirstiness of the Islamists, we can legitimately wonder how much those evil flames have been fanned, much the same way that racism is just not allowed to die its natural death in North America. Why? Because it is so useful for dividing and controlling us. Always.
Are they so unimaginative they're not assailed with occasional misapprehensions about the world they're creating?
Guess so! Create the apocalypse, then scuttle into a luxury bunker to eat canned food for a decade? How stupid can they get?
The way we must preface our questions with a veritable novel of "not all" and "I'm not inferring to..." is extraordinarily exhausting. We the people can't even agree on whether or not the rape and murder of thousands is good or bad.
Growing up, I saw my grandfather, Julius, take measures to hide he was Jewish. He was a well respected businessman. "What's the big deal?", I thought. "They're colleagues, they wouldn't care."
I was so very ignorant.
There is so much bigotry in so many ethnicities. I once had a friend who was Irish Catholic. She had immigrated to the US and married another Irishman. They hid the fact that she had been married before, had two children and then divorced because her husband would have been seen as having bought “used goods” by marrying a divorcee with two children. No one in their Irish Catholic circle of friends ever knew she had these adult children until she became terminally ill. Somewhere, somehow, people need to realize we all bleed red and are all children created in God’s image and deserve peace and happiness and a life without judgement for being of one group or the other.
It seems so trivial!
Your analysis is spot on. This message is from myself and my husband, Ted Wrinch (also a paying subscriber).
This might help:
The Kill Rate of Civilians to Hamas is 2:1 - the lowest in history.
It’s relatively low given how Hamas uses their own people as human shield.
The IDF is not targeting civilians but there will be psychopaths in their army.
Answer to your Q:The kill rate seems to indicate proportionality.
Normal kill rate historically:
2:1 World War 2 (between 3:2 and 2:1)
3:1 Korean War (after WW2)
1:1 Vietnam war
4:1 NATO in Kosovo
10:1 Chechen
4:1 Afghanistan
Regarding PHA: we’re not experts, but most likely they’re not honest.
We’re asking the Question: Why did Hamas build 300+ miles of tunnels that go through institutions. We look at facts re the tunnel typology.
‘Almost all of Hamas's tunnels are built into civilian and protected sites in densely populated urban areas.’
https://mwi.westpoint.edu/gazas-underground-hamass-entire-politico-military-strategy-rests-on-its-tunnels/#:~:text=These%20laws%20restrict%20the%20use,in%20densely%20populated%20urban%20areas.
Re how to know what is true. We look for evidence and for people who are trying to tell the truth. It’s the same process at looking at a narcissistic smear campaign.
Maybe it's because I like seeing numbers but this was a very helpful rundown. Thank you.
Living in a cluster B family and coming through it relatively sane can give you important skills in truth finding. Those skills include seeing through the character assassinations, smear campaigns and gaslighting that one is subject to in such families. To do this one often becomes hyper -sensitised to lying and laser focused on clues to truth. One looks primarily at facts and sharpening one’s reasoning about them (I began the fight for freedom against my Nmum at 14 by arguing with her against what I was beginning to realise was pathological lying). Ava and I have tried to do the same to find the truth through the lies, misinformation and distortions around the Hamas-Israel conflict. We’re fairly confident we’re on the right track.
More facts:
https://stratcomcoe.org/cuploads/pfiles/hamas_human_shields.pdf
This was written in 2014.
We’ve seen clips of what the article describes.
Look into the WestPoint article.
There’s also an article in The Hill regarding why Hamas builds tunnels. (written after the attack)
Our family also watched a lot of videos by The Green Prince. Have you caught any of his videos?
The roots of this 1000 year old conflict are so deeply tangled & embedded that I don’t believe that those living in the region know what’s actually going on & how much they are being played by the modern day psychopaths.
Thank you for raising these questions and providing a forum for us to speak freely and compassionately. I’m very conflicted here, and I really cannot tell what are and aren’t facts and truth. It does feel like being mind controlled by my (cluster B?) father and my extreme religious upbringing. I was never sure if up was down and black was white. I also have experience being bullied and bullying in return. I sense that the majority population on BOTH ‘sides’ of this divide just want to live in peace and can’t get out from under their corrupt and deranged leadership in a holy war. I sense evil and continued trauma.
No winners here. I despair.
For what it's worth, I have two friends from Palestine. An older couple. They've lived in the US for a long time and are lovely, gentle people. One of them lost a brother and five other family members all at once in the airstrike on St. Porphyrius Church in Gaza. I share your concerns and your reticence. And I check the news every few days to see if those precious Bibas children have been rescued from Hamas. From my very limited vantage point, it seems to be a catastrophe from every angle. Ultimately I am (mostly) in the dark.
I have tried to get some information from my Arab Christian acquaintances because I feel like they have a unique vantage point. They are Arabs and Palestinians and have family who still live in Gaza and the West Bank (or other mostly Muslim countries) but because they are Christians they are at risk from Muslim Extremists as well. It has been very hard to get a straight answer from them.
Yes. We attend an Antiochian Orthodox church. Our priest is originally from a war-torn country in the Middle East. The friends I mentioned are parishioners. I don't want to pry, but when the opportunity arises, I hope to gain a better understanding through speaking with them about it. I think our priest will be honest with us, and maybe I just need to go ahead and ask him.
Nua - I'm OCA but my son and DIL attend an Antiochian church, but their priest is a convert. And my new son-in-law's godfather is *edited* Syrian but grew up in Egypt. One of the things they have in common is that none of them are protesting "to the river to the sea", etc. They are avoiding stuff like that as far as I can tell. We all want peace. I would ask your priest privately. I know they are in a tough situation. They don't want to cause division in their parish. Covid was bad enough.
Thank you for even asking the questions, while knowing how emotionally charged it is for people. I think the fact that putting the questions out there because you sincerely want answers, ties your stomach up in knots because you anticipate so much ugliness, even possibly from your own supporters, tells us how well and truly fucked we all are. (Sorry for the poorly constructed sentence!)
Disclaimer: for the rest of this post, when I say "you", I mean in in the universal sense, not directed at Josh, specifically.
My 2 cents is this: what's freaking me out is that no one wants peace anymore. In anything. Everybody wants to pick a side, then rain holy hell on anyone who disagrees, even though these are deeply complicated situations that stretch back generations, well beyond recent events. This should be taken into account with what happened in Gaza, just like it needs to be taken into account with what happened in Ukraine.
There is HISTORY that must be taken into account in all of these conflicts. If people don't want to look at it in its entirety, then they're not ready to truly understand. This shit is messy and unpleasant, and just like any other conflict between people in other countries, we Americans cannot relate in any way to a war-torn region of the world. We are pampered, comfortable, and too distracted by our very selves to truly understand the horror happening around the world. We will never know what is like to be one of these very real human beings trying not to die on a daily, hourly basis.
No matter which side you choose (and really, unless we're personally involved, what right do we have to choose a side in any of these conflicts?) I think we should all take a step back from the bloodthirsty circus and attempt to regain our humanity.
Try to remember how much propaganda we're all drowning in every day. It's meant to outrage and demoralize us to the point that we become all-consumed with bloodlust, or we become hollow, lifeless shells of human beings and give up entirely.
I'd ask you to check your moral compass, either way. If you can justify what Hamas did on that day, you need to have a good hard look at yourself. If you believe that rape and murder are the actual "cost of freedom", then admit that's who you are, and take the lumps that come from it. Only blind fanatics will excuse your position.
On the flip side, whether you believe the official death tolls or not, if you can't recognize a wildly disproportionate response when you see one, then you also need to have a good think about what you're willing to tolerate in the name of "justice" and ask yourself if it really sits right with you.
Is an eye for an eye a good response? Even if that seems reasonable to you, we passed the 1,200 dead Israelis = 1,200 dead Palestinians many thousands of dead humans ago... by a LOT, by any count. Israeli children died on October 7th. Since that day, Palestinian children have died and they're still being killed, maimed, and starved for months on end. That's the part that's not sitting right with many reasonable and empathetic people.
I'm half Ashkenazi Jew, I'm not an antisemite for being appalled at Israel's response. On some level, anyone who's not an absolute zealot must objectively look at this situation and see that the bombing has to stop.
Where are the calls from our leaders for peace? Why is America funding both sides? Why aren't our leaders stopping this, when they so easily could by turning off the cash spigot? Could it be that once again, America is running its own agenda and sees no upside to demanding peace? It's coming up on 5 months. How can this not be enough already? Will it unrape the women? Will it bring back Israel's innocent dead? Are there not innocent Palestinians dying right now? I'm so tired of the killing. I don't care who's doing it or why anymore, I just want it to fucking STOP already.
My sympathy for Israel is now wearing thin and I have a hard time seeing how the continued destruction of Gaza could ever be justified at this point.
In fighting monsters, we become monsters at the cost of our own humanity. In time, there will be nothing left but monsters. Then what?
Excellent comments. Thank you.
I'm sure that I don't understand all the nuances of this conflict, but I believe that we do need to be clear that Hamas is NOT the Palestinian people, Hamas is a terrorist organization that has taken over and occupied Gaza. As near as I can tell, the people who live there need to be liberated from Hamas. Every organization that was supposed to help them, from the UN to Western nations giving aid, to the other Arab states, have victimized them by allowing Hamas to steal the aid that was given and to infiltrate and corrupt the institutions that were supposed to help the people. Why would Hamas need to build such elaborate tunnel complexes if they were just running the government in Gaza? It appears that they stole huge amounts of the aid given to Gaza and diverted it into weapons, tunnels, and high living for Hamas leadership. Hamas has stated many times that it intends to destroy Israel completely and kill every citizen. What is Israel supposed to do about that? It has tried appeasement, aid, giving Gaza electricity, food, water, and all they have gotten is death threats from Hamas. I do not think they have a choice except to destroy Hamas as a functioning organization, in any way possible. This can allow the Palestinian people of Gaza a chance, anyway, of perhaps building some kind of society for themselves, although I do not hold out much hope that they can do that. The other Arab states have made it quite clear that they don't want to help the Palestinians in any way, they just want to use them as a political pawn when it is convenient. That is not our problem, and it's not Israel's problem either, really, it's something that the other Arab states need to figure out. But I think, sadly, in reality this will continue to fester as it has for thousands of years. If you look back at history, the Near East-Middle East has seen almost constant conflict since the first people settled here 5000 years ago.
Agree.
I think Darryl Cooper has done the most in-depth coverage of the history leading up to this event. He covers this in a 20+ hour podcast series. It’s excellent.
https://substack.com/@martyrmade?r=8l2it&utm_medium=ios&utm_source=profile
Darryl is a pleasure to listen to and I believe he's one of the best contemporary historians here on Substack. He studies deeply and is refreshingly honest when he takes on a subject. Never a waste of precious time when there is so much excellent content available.
Darryl's podcast is great. I've yet to listen to the 20+ hours series though. He's a great storyteller so I'm sure it's worth it! He does a good job covering topics in a non linear way. Ive made it through "Black's and Jews" and currently listening to "God's Socialist". His new series on slavery doesn't disappoint either.
I just listened to Douglas Murray say that if any other country in the West had been attacked like that, there would be no "proportionality" discussion. I think he's correct. After 911, there was not that discussion. Hamas is evil. Innocent people are hurt. We can't trust any media or government organization to tell us the truth of what's happening about anything. Not sure where that leaves us. But I'm glad there are other people who see it.
My two cents: people can talk about proportionality if they want to. But Hamas deserves to get laughed in the face when they try to do it. When you take a bat to a hornets' nest, don't complain when you get stung. And don't go on and on about how you figured you'd get maybe a couple dozen stings, but not 100+. It doesn't work that way.
Right? Let’s tangle with the IDF when we are logistically and strategically inferior in terms of military force. What could go wrong?? Oh, I know… let’s use mainstream media to fight the battle we instigated to garner sympathy and pull in the big guns. We can sit back and enjoy the show.
Thank you Josh! I have been wanting to know these questions too. I suspect part of the reason it is so hard to get to the truth is because the media narrative wants to turn real-life conflicts into a Disney movie: "Good guy vs Bad Guy" and sometimes they're both bad! Or both have very bad players or just plain complicated. Thanks for starting this conversation.