Comment by datsci_est_2015
2 hours ago
> From my understanding Ben Gvir(who has very little overall support in Israel from the population at large) getting elected is more of a consequence of Israel having nationwide proportional representation which allows extremists to get elected.
The existence of the support for those extremists has the same root cause that I stated in my original message: the artificial and strategic neocolonial state propped up by outside financial support with the expressed goal of establishing an ethnostate that eventually and inevitably led to apartheid.
> So most states in the middle east should be dissolved? It's not clear what you're actually advocating for in practice.
You can't unscramble an egg. Dissolution of dysfunctional but non-anarchic states is obviously a hyperbolic solution that I think you're aware brings nothing to the table as a suggestion.
What I'm advocating for in practice is quite clear in my original post, but I'll state it again: we need to denounce artificial states, neocolonialism, ethnostates, and apartheid. Much in the same way that we denounce war crimes, sex trafficking, and slavery.
> So we should dissolve most states including the United States due to flawed founding principals?
Again, you're bringing nothing to the table here with hyperbole. But in a way, yes, during Reconstruction a more heavy-handed approach should have been used to eliminate with great fury and prejudice the cultural desire for an apartheid state in the South, and maybe prevented or softened 150 years of suffering for black people and their descendants.
> The existence of the support for those extremists has the same root cause that I stated in my original message: the artificial and strategic neocolonial state propped up by outside financial support with the expressed goal of establishing an ethnostate that eventually led to apartheid.
Do you attribute Palestinian support for extremism to a similar root cause? Opinion polling indicates the extremism problem is far worse on the Palestinian side, Israeli extremism trends tend to be fairly reactionary to Palestinian extremism(i.e. Second Intifada) historically.
> What I'm advocating for in practice is quite clear in my original post, but I'll state it again: we need to denounce artificial states, neocolonialism, ethnostates, and apartheid. Much in the same way that we denounce war crimes, sex trafficking, and slavery.
So you're just advocating just for more virtue signalling instead of actual concrete actions? I don't see how that would meaningfully change the situation on the ground as I don't see how denouncing the right for Israel to exist is going to do anything except push Israel towards a more extreme position.
> But in a way, yes, during Reconstruction a more heavy-handed approach should have been used to eliminate with great fury and prejudice the cultural desire for an apartheid state in the South, and maybe prevented or softened 150 years of suffering for black people and their descendants.
Are you suggesting Israel also take a more heavy handed approach when it comes to eliminating the widespread practice of teaching of hate and antisemitism[0] to Palestinians?
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Textbooks_in_the_Israeli%E2%80...
> Do you attribute Palestinian support for extremism to a similar root cause?
Yes. But we typically don't call oppressed peoples "extremists". For example, I wouldn't call those who rebelled in the Warsaw Ghetto "extremists". I wouldn't call a 14 year old boy who has only known struggle his whole life under apartheid an "extremist". Apartheid also has had a lasting effect on oppressor / oppressed dynamics in South Africa in a sad and complicated way. There is a wrinkle that Muslim extremists fund Palestinian groups, but I view this as yin to the yang of Israeli settlement funding (also extremist). Two sides of the same apartheid coin.
> So you're just advocating just for more virtue signalling instead of actual concrete actions?
Calling everything one disagrees with "virtue signalling" is a tired trope. There is no solution that will occur in our lifetimes, because there is no benevolent and omnipotent authority that can snap their magic finger and cease the suffering that's occurring because of this apartheid ethnostate.
With my suggestion, I'm trying to prevent the next ethnostate disaster. Ideally, I would want our descendants to recoil in disgust when thinking of the concept of funding an ethnostate in the same way that we recoil in disgust at the concept of funding a sex trafficking ring. I will teach my children, and my children's children, that "A State for [] People" is disgusting, no matter what [] is - unless it is "A State for All People".
> I don't see how that would meaningfully change the situation on the ground as I don't see how denouncing the right for Israel to exist is going to do anything except push Israel towards a more extreme position.
It's not that Israel doesn't have a right to exist, you're putting words in my mouth. South Africa was once an apartheid state, and it continues to exist. Similarly, ethnostates need to find ways to transition away from being ethnostates. Being an ethnostate can only lead to crimes against humanity.
> Are you suggesting Israel also take a more heavy handed approach when it comes to eliminating the widespread practice of teaching of hate and antisemitism[0] to Palestinians?
If only I could trust the state of Israel to actually design a "heavy handed approach" that wasn't rape, pillage, murder, and terrorize. The Union could be trusted, but only barely. The Union famously allowed black women to testify against the Union soldiers who raped them. I could never imagine the state of Israel allowing a Palestinian to testify against an Israeli soldier who raped them. Not yet, at least.