If I could upload a photo here, I would start with one of those pictures of a (supposedly possibly) starving or wounded Palestinian baby/child and paraphrase the famous words of René Magritte's "Treachery of Images": "Ceci n'est pas une Palestinian" ("This is not a Palestinian").
My point being:
The Palestinians have a wholly symbolic existence in the mind of Western liberals and Leftists, where their history, current situation and sufferings are appropriated, wielded, franchised and weaponized for other people's causes and needs (esp political and psychological). For a regular liberal without much knowledge of the conflict, supporting the Palestinian cause is a cheap and easy way to score virtue points and display your opposition to war, imperialism, colonialism etc, which are necessary positions in liberal spaces; for your campus crusader jacked up on ideology and looking for something to fill their spiritual void and meaning/purpose-shaped hole, Israel gets loaded with all of history's evils: settler-colonial white-supremacist imperialist apartheid genocide etc. For these people the suffering of distant dark-skinned strangers is a valuable resource that provides the necessary rituals of public atonement, of signalling your opposition to "Whiteness" and all its illegitimate fruits and your righteous and holy allegiance to the Wretched of the Earth. They desperately need a Manichaean cause (esp when they can cast themselves as revolutionaries who've dedicated their lives to Justice), thus have created one.
And then of course there's the leaders of the Western Left, which inherited the Palestinian Cause from the Soviet Union and have now made it their entire raison d'etre. (Don't take it from me, here's Judith Butler: "Understanding Hamas, Hezbollah as social movements that are progressive, that are on the Left, that are part of a global Left, is extremely important.") For the professional academic Marxist/Leftist, the Palestinians are totems and props and a new set of characters cast in the 20th century Leftist's attempted rerun of the French/October/Marxist Revolutions: after the Bolsheviks created only a police state, Chairman Mao one too many famines and purges , Hồ Chí Minh died, Fidel and Che became dictators, next up to fill the starring role came the PLO and Arafat. Or, as one scholar at the Brooklyn Institute for Social Research wrote recently: “[Israel is] a condensation of Western colonial and imperial power, a worldwide symbol of Western perfidy (!!!), a state which physically cleaves Africa and Asia, a merchant and mercenary of global counter-insurgency, all melded in a manticore of death and destruction.” (The Jewish scapegoat rides again, this time as a "worldwide symbol of Western perfidy.")
But what was/is best for the actual Palestinian people has never once been considered.
Free Palestine! from the Western Left and its fellow travelers, who are guilty of moral and emotional imperialism and whose 50-year campaign to destroy the Jewish state has only led to bloodshed and misery and done nothing to help the people they claim to be supporting.
I didn't make that claim and have no current evidence to prove or disprove it. (I don't consider the Gaza Health Ministry aka Hamas a reliable source.) But things like starvation, privation, death, injury etc all occur during active wars, which is why you should be careful when you start one. One thing I'm just about certain of though is that Israel/IDF has done more for an enemy population during an active war than maybe any state/army ever.
Excellent essay Yassine. It is the best explanation I have seen recently on how so many people can be so confused for so long. I hope some day soon you can start writing about other topics.
I oscillate between two explanations, which are both drawn from my inconsequential life experience of course, so, grain of salt bla bla:
1. Fandom. Israelis aren't real people, Palestinians certainly aren't. Fandom culture has taken on an increasingly morally charged tone over time, as far as I can tell, as people can be called Nazis for liking Harry Potter given the author's politics, but also as people can be called Nazis for being fans of the wrong character. This mostly takes place online, thank god, but all the same - real people get harassed over their fictional tastes. And so, Israel/Palestine is just another fandom. I think this could account for the Free-Palestines' palpable disappointment when it turns out that fewer Palestinians have died than previously believed. Likewise, their displeasure with the ceasefire deal - it's not very pleasing, you know, narratively. So even though they got what they wanted, it feels shoe-horned and poorly written and imposed from above, which, you know, it was. Not a very satisfying character arc or resolution or anything.
2. They're terrified. Not of Israel and not of Jews. They're terrified of Jihadi terrorists, and they're deep in doublethink. They are helpless to actually fight it, so out of wishful thinking, they cast Israel as the villain, hoping that they wouldn't have to fight anything because they cast themselves as the saviors and not as potential victims. They also know, but can't afford to know, that at the bottom of it all lies Jihadi ideology that will come for them just as fast. If they pointed it out, it would only draw the Jihadis' ire. So they do everything within their power to not know anything.
Yes, it was notable how, when the ceasefire came into effect, certain people seemed to be unhappy about it, even though they had chanted or tweeted “ceasefire now”! Almost like that’s not what they wanted.
While I understand the urge to move on and write about other things, please remember that you are writing with a precise moral clarity and deep critical thinking about an extremely fraught topic and it's really important for people to hear your perspective. This issue has polarized people like nothing I've ever seen. It's ended close friendships and may have impacted American politics forever. So move on to other things as you please but don't underestimate your value in this discourse.
Agreed. Yassine's writing on this topic has been an intellectual treat to read. Very few have the patience to engage with people like Kriss and deBoer the way he does, and as long as he's enjoying himself I'd love to see him continue.
Hard agree. I can't stop reading about this conflict (being irrationally hated is fascinating, what can I say?) and very few people go to this level of dissection that Yassine does. These are all the questions I want to tease out of the people I know who have gotten swept up in this movement.
Great essay. What always strikes me is how the so-called progressive left has been making exactly the same arguments about Zionism as an imperialist project for well over 50 years. And to what practical end?
Read Seymour Martin Lipset's article from the NYT in 1971, and his subsequent tart exchange with a radical student in the letters column. Has anything changed?
The only thing that has changed is that there are no longer any serious liberal or leftist voices objecting to the concept that you might go to someone's synagogue and shoot them or rough them up a bit for having politics you disagree with.
What’s changed is the open professional and social discrimination of progressives against the “wrong kind of Jews” (so roughly 85% of them), the intensifying vandalism, assault and murder of Jews by the DSA friends of the progressives.
Big fan of most of the essay, but I found the part about people not wanting to debate live a bit odd. Far from being a more clear and rigorous format, I think debate is something of a novelty medium; there's a reason the majority of scientific discourse takes place on the medium which lets you carefully consider your words and claims, and not the medium where live gaffs are likely to make up a significant portion of the discourse.
Another point:
I think you're basically correct on the political power of guilt. Famously the unification church in Japan uses similar strategies based around WW2 guilt to drive donations for their cult, and I've seen at least one online social justice group fall prey to similar strategies from high profile scammer members.
Written discourse is perfectly fine for scientific discourse, because you generally can expect the participation of earnest truth-seekers. The utility of live debates shines most acutely when you're dealing with contentious topics where obfuscation and evasion are more common.
I just got around to reading Bethams blog post, and I think I feel similarly about it actually.
It seems to me, that less than debate being a useful medium, it's just that the default way of communicating on the internet is profoundly broken.
It's a bit of a controversial opinion, but I actually think debate is more vulnerable to bad faith than text. Famously, debate is the medium that gave rise to gish Gallup's, for example.
Maybe some form of fixed-length blog exchange would be the solution? I'm not sure though.
I can not express enough my appreciation for you bravely speaking out against the disgraceful treatment of Jews taking place throughout the world today.
If only the Palestinian movement had listened to me a bit over fifty years ago, when I counseled them that pursuing a Gandhi or MLK style approach would be more successful. If they had, at very least there would have been a Palestinian West Bank and Gaza, no settler movement and no annexation of East Jerusalem, but who knows what else. Alas, the PLO of those days was unable to access my high school newspaper.
Yeah, okay, fair enough. If we want a binational state where people aren't constantly bumping each other off, shutting down genocidal talk from all sides might be a decent place to start.
Ok now I'm sure of it, I don't like your writing as much as before
Your vocabulary and syntax are just as impressive, but some sentences almost feel like AI slop
Also, about the subjects you cover, I think you're spending too much time worrying about the opinions of crazy morons, like "look what those guys are saying"
I'm not always against this style of writing, after all it's pretty much Blocked and Reported's whole shtick and they (mostly) make it work, but you really have to focus on what is interesting or surprising about the social dynamics at play, and I just don't feel like that's the case here, like I didn't learn much reading this
There's also the risk of the cowpox of doubt, as Scott put it. I think of you as someone who can tackle subtle subjects with nuance and honesty, but lately you mostly seem to revel in pointing out some people's lack of nuance and honesty
So yeah I guess I do think you write too much about antisemitism and the excesses of Palestinian activism, because even though it's probably a consequential and representative problem I just don't think it's that rich or interesting
I'll amend my statement by saying that I didn't feel this way about the last post on Freddie deBoer, I don't know much about the guy but it seems like he's dishonest in a relatively idiosyncratic way
I really appreciate that you take the time to give me feedback. It's valid to caution me against worrying about the opinions of crazy morons, but I think I sufficiently articulated why the stakes are not so limited here. This issue is a lot more "consequential" than "theatrical".
If you didn't learn anything new from this, I would posit it's much more an indication of how robust your knowledge/familiarity already is on this issue rather than me failing to provide something new. The response from detached normies to this has generally been of surprise and shock.
If my thesis comes off as revelry, that's not at all my aim. My intent with this essay was to speak clearly and directly about the stakes, not sugarcoat the problems, and yet also leave an empathy door open for anyone who disagrees with me. I have previously mentioned that persuasion is a difficult beast to tackle, and sometimes it requires "psychological games" (terrible phrase but best I can think of) in an attempt to shatter rigid frames. I'm always open to feedback on what specifically comes off as gratuitous or counterproductive.
I agree that the issue is consequential, and might be related to other consequential issues (I'm not a fan of Scott Aaronson's view of antisemitism as the nexus of all anti-intellectual bigotry but I wouldn't completely dismiss it)
It's just not that intellectually interesting to me
I spoke too strongly when I said I learned nothing; I should have said that what I learned didn't improve my understanding of SoCiEtY as much as I would have liked
I didn't realized the piece was aimed at normies, but I'm glad they liked it! I guess part of my reaction is nostalgia for the time when your writing was compatible with an audience of extremely-online rat-adjacent nerds
I also apologize for the word revel, it was harsher than what I meant
I'm not too concerned about your accusations or your tone being too harsh or counterproductive, but I do see a looming threat of empty shadenfreude and audience capture
No need to apologize! Like I said, I really appreciate feedback and I'd rather people were less timid about giving it.
I think about audience capture at a degree that is likely unreasonable. I probably over-correct on this dimension because I've always had a core constitutional aversion to people too readily agreeing with me. Case in point: I was invited to be a speaker at a Zionist event and the general feedback was that I came off as very antagonistic because I elevated my disagreements much more.
Yassine, splendid. Can’t wait until the only thing left to write about is your cats. Meanwhile, did you see how Portland lit their (un)Christmas tree then invited all the little children to scream “Free, free Palestine!” after apologizing for doing it all on stolen Native land? Good times…
“Portland, Oregon, is under fire for again hosting its annual Christmas tree lighting ceremony and nixing any mention of the Christian holiday, while leaders of the event instead waved a Palestinian flag and led the crowd in chants.
"Free, free, free Palestine," a woman holding a Palestinian flag on stage of the lighting event said while leading the crowd in a chant Friday evening, before also singing the "Strong Woman Song" while joined by the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs, which is a confederation of three native tribes in Oregon.
The event was decked out in Christmas lights, a traditionally decorated tree and a visit from Santa Claus, but did not promote any mention of Christmas, with organizers instead advertising the festive occasion as "Portland's 41st Annual Tree Lighting Ceremony," according to social media accounts for Pioneer Courthouse Square, where the tree is displayed.”
And on Gaza, neither side has covered themselves in glory unfortunately. Hamas' actions have been obviously horrifying and Israel's response is unsurprising and the Palestinians (or at least the organizations getting any air time) have supported Hamas in their activities. And Israel in turn has caused immense amounts of destruction without (as far as I can tell...) actually eliminating Hamas as a going concern! What's to stop Hamas from re-establishing itself when Israel finally lets off?
The weak are judged by their obedience, the strong by their effectiveness. In this case, both have failed.
> And Israel in turn has caused immense amounts of destruction
I'd say "immense amounts of destruction" is a very bloodless way to put it. Israel has littered Gaza with dead bodies and small chunks of dead bodies, about 70,525 according to Wikipedia, 70% of them women and children.
About 1500 health workers have been killed, a figure that would make Putin's forces in Syria blush (the figures I found converge to around a thousand killed during the entire war). In multiple instances, the IDF slaughtered Red Crescent workers who had been coordinating their movements with IDF command, then lied about it and claimed they were Hamas militants, then backtracked and claimed it was an operational mistake after further proof came out.
I'm not gonna go into the engineered starvation, the systematic destruction of buildings, the use of civilians as human bomb detectors, the litany of recorded war crimes associated with the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, the whistleblower testimonies that Israel used AI with 90% accuracy (e.g. a 10% error rate) to produce targets and then systematically bombed them once they were home with their families, because there's just too much to cover.
Suffice to say that when the UN says Israel is committing genocide, it's based on documented facts, not just vibes.
EDIT: I initially cited the IAGS, but in retrospect I don't know who the "genocide scholars" in question are and Yassine makes a convincing point that they're not trustworthy. The UN's IICIOPT is better as an authoritative source, but in any case "this authoritative source said it was genocide" isn't really the kind of argument that convinces anyone.
I stand by my main point: it's a documented fact that Israel has killed enormous amounts of civilians, either deliberately or through neglect, and that those civilian deaths have been encouraged by both military and political leadership.
I fully acknowledge that was not the main point of your post, but it's perfectly relevant to point out how you breezily made a citation that was completely vacuous. "According to this organization anyone, including Hitler, can join" obviously gets interpreted very differently than "according to this organization of genocide scholars" and it's a worrying sign that you fell for it.
That doesn't necessarily mean your conclusions are wrong but at minimum, it should force you to acknowledge that you're not applying sufficient scrutiny to this topic.
Look, man, there's just a lot. Sometimes I do spend the time fact-checking everything (like when Tony Aguilar came forward and I spent a whole day looking up his background, his allegations, the GHF's counter-allegations, his counter-counter allegations, articles about the events he discussed, etc), sometimes among the 10 sources I find saying the same thing I have one that's not reputable and I don't notice.
When I *do* spend an afternoon knee-deep in documentation, what I usually find is that either the IDF demonstrably did the horrible thing it's accused of, or it's plausible the IDF did it but maybe it actually did a slightly less horrible but still immoral thing.
The "1500 health workers killed" figure is from the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry ; I haven't found if any of the sources that relayed it independently verified it, but so far the GHM has been widely considered as reliable (especially because it tends to publish only confirmed fatalities, aka dead people whose name they can report).
The "using AI to pick targets" story was published by The Guardian and +972 based on whistleblower testimonies. I haven't see any evidence it's false.
The fact that SRS used live ammunition as a means of crowd control during GHF distributions is extremely well-documented, if only because their official stance was "Yeah but we're shooting at the ground or over people, so it's okay".
So maybe I should have applied more scrutiny to the IAGS narrative. But I would have been more inclined to if the IDF didn't keep committing war crimes.
I'm not trying to single you out, I fully believe you're trying your best and appreciate your pushback but the issue I highlight is part of a much larger concern! Just imagine the flipside, if I had ever said "Well according to the Famine Scholar's Consortium, there is no starvation in Gaza" and then you found out FSC is an Israeli organization that allows anyone to join. I would force myself into retirement and never talk about this issue again!
And yet, even after the Adolf Hitler expose, journalists and activists are still repeatedly citing IAGS as a credible source! This is a shocking and inexcusable failure, and it's indicative of a much wider problem, something I wrote about before: https://www.ymeskhout.com/p/quick-lesson-on-media-literacy
One of the reasons writing on this topic takes me so much time is because I can no longer trust any source at face-value, and so I have to waste a lot of time tracking down original sources to ensure they say what others claim they say.
Randomly pick 5 citations within that section and see if you can track down the original statement in its original language and original context, and then honestly tell me which ones were reasonably interpreted as talking about ALL palestinians rather than just Hamas and other combatants. I'm absolutely sure you'll find some, but the portion will be instructive.
Yassine, splendid. Can’t wait until the only thing left to write about is your cats. Meanwhile did you see how Portland lit their (un)Christmas tree then invited all the little children to scream “Free, free Palestine!” after apologizing for doing it all on stolen Native land? Good times…
If I could upload a photo here, I would start with one of those pictures of a (supposedly possibly) starving or wounded Palestinian baby/child and paraphrase the famous words of René Magritte's "Treachery of Images": "Ceci n'est pas une Palestinian" ("This is not a Palestinian").
My point being:
The Palestinians have a wholly symbolic existence in the mind of Western liberals and Leftists, where their history, current situation and sufferings are appropriated, wielded, franchised and weaponized for other people's causes and needs (esp political and psychological). For a regular liberal without much knowledge of the conflict, supporting the Palestinian cause is a cheap and easy way to score virtue points and display your opposition to war, imperialism, colonialism etc, which are necessary positions in liberal spaces; for your campus crusader jacked up on ideology and looking for something to fill their spiritual void and meaning/purpose-shaped hole, Israel gets loaded with all of history's evils: settler-colonial white-supremacist imperialist apartheid genocide etc. For these people the suffering of distant dark-skinned strangers is a valuable resource that provides the necessary rituals of public atonement, of signalling your opposition to "Whiteness" and all its illegitimate fruits and your righteous and holy allegiance to the Wretched of the Earth. They desperately need a Manichaean cause (esp when they can cast themselves as revolutionaries who've dedicated their lives to Justice), thus have created one.
And then of course there's the leaders of the Western Left, which inherited the Palestinian Cause from the Soviet Union and have now made it their entire raison d'etre. (Don't take it from me, here's Judith Butler: "Understanding Hamas, Hezbollah as social movements that are progressive, that are on the Left, that are part of a global Left, is extremely important.") For the professional academic Marxist/Leftist, the Palestinians are totems and props and a new set of characters cast in the 20th century Leftist's attempted rerun of the French/October/Marxist Revolutions: after the Bolsheviks created only a police state, Chairman Mao one too many famines and purges , Hồ Chí Minh died, Fidel and Che became dictators, next up to fill the starring role came the PLO and Arafat. Or, as one scholar at the Brooklyn Institute for Social Research wrote recently: “[Israel is] a condensation of Western colonial and imperial power, a worldwide symbol of Western perfidy (!!!), a state which physically cleaves Africa and Asia, a merchant and mercenary of global counter-insurgency, all melded in a manticore of death and destruction.” (The Jewish scapegoat rides again, this time as a "worldwide symbol of Western perfidy.")
But what was/is best for the actual Palestinian people has never once been considered.
Free Palestine! from the Western Left and its fellow travelers, who are guilty of moral and emotional imperialism and whose 50-year campaign to destroy the Jewish state has only led to bloodshed and misery and done nothing to help the people they claim to be supporting.
So all this symbolic whiteness stuff is cool and all, but are you claiming that Gaza *hasn't* faced widespread starvation?
I didn't make that claim and have no current evidence to prove or disprove it. (I don't consider the Gaza Health Ministry aka Hamas a reliable source.) But things like starvation, privation, death, injury etc all occur during active wars, which is why you should be careful when you start one. One thing I'm just about certain of though is that Israel/IDF has done more for an enemy population during an active war than maybe any state/army ever.
https://x.com/SpencerGuard/status/1949530314977722653?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1949530314977722653%7Ctwgr%5Ed28545cb6d6b593f4e4ad334f97066ea7aebf899%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.jpost.com%2Fopinion%2Farticle-862533
If you'd like to make the claim that Gaza has "faced widespread starvation", feel free. I'm always open to new evidence and assessments.
It hasn’t. Your brain should be able to comprehend that people that remain obese after months of “famine” aren’t starving.
https://open.substack.com/pub/spencerguard/p/a-response-to-the-this-is-the-storyon
Excellent essay Yassine. It is the best explanation I have seen recently on how so many people can be so confused for so long. I hope some day soon you can start writing about other topics.
I oscillate between two explanations, which are both drawn from my inconsequential life experience of course, so, grain of salt bla bla:
1. Fandom. Israelis aren't real people, Palestinians certainly aren't. Fandom culture has taken on an increasingly morally charged tone over time, as far as I can tell, as people can be called Nazis for liking Harry Potter given the author's politics, but also as people can be called Nazis for being fans of the wrong character. This mostly takes place online, thank god, but all the same - real people get harassed over their fictional tastes. And so, Israel/Palestine is just another fandom. I think this could account for the Free-Palestines' palpable disappointment when it turns out that fewer Palestinians have died than previously believed. Likewise, their displeasure with the ceasefire deal - it's not very pleasing, you know, narratively. So even though they got what they wanted, it feels shoe-horned and poorly written and imposed from above, which, you know, it was. Not a very satisfying character arc or resolution or anything.
2. They're terrified. Not of Israel and not of Jews. They're terrified of Jihadi terrorists, and they're deep in doublethink. They are helpless to actually fight it, so out of wishful thinking, they cast Israel as the villain, hoping that they wouldn't have to fight anything because they cast themselves as the saviors and not as potential victims. They also know, but can't afford to know, that at the bottom of it all lies Jihadi ideology that will come for them just as fast. If they pointed it out, it would only draw the Jihadis' ire. So they do everything within their power to not know anything.
I heartily endorse the first explanation. I find the second one far less convincing but it's certainly interesting and worth mulling over.
The burden of proof is higher, for sure. Thank you for yet another banger.
Yes, it was notable how, when the ceasefire came into effect, certain people seemed to be unhappy about it, even though they had chanted or tweeted “ceasefire now”! Almost like that’s not what they wanted.
I think they just wanted Israel to ceasefire.
More likely want 7.7 million Israeli Jews to cease to exist.
Fandom take is so interesting! Thanks for sharing
While I understand the urge to move on and write about other things, please remember that you are writing with a precise moral clarity and deep critical thinking about an extremely fraught topic and it's really important for people to hear your perspective. This issue has polarized people like nothing I've ever seen. It's ended close friendships and may have impacted American politics forever. So move on to other things as you please but don't underestimate your value in this discourse.
Agreed. Yassine's writing on this topic has been an intellectual treat to read. Very few have the patience to engage with people like Kriss and deBoer the way he does, and as long as he's enjoying himself I'd love to see him continue.
Hard agree. I can't stop reading about this conflict (being irrationally hated is fascinating, what can I say?) and very few people go to this level of dissection that Yassine does. These are all the questions I want to tease out of the people I know who have gotten swept up in this movement.
Also a fan of Gurwinder.
You're quite fascinating.
Great essay. What always strikes me is how the so-called progressive left has been making exactly the same arguments about Zionism as an imperialist project for well over 50 years. And to what practical end?
Read Seymour Martin Lipset's article from the NYT in 1971, and his subsequent tart exchange with a radical student in the letters column. Has anything changed?
https://www.nytimes.com/1971/01/03/archives/-the-socialism-of-fools-the-new-left-calls-it-antizionism-but-its.html
https://www.nytimes.com/1971/03/14/archives/antisemitism-and-antizionism.html
The only thing that has changed is that there are no longer any serious liberal or leftist voices objecting to the concept that you might go to someone's synagogue and shoot them or rough them up a bit for having politics you disagree with.
What’s changed is the open professional and social discrimination of progressives against the “wrong kind of Jews” (so roughly 85% of them), the intensifying vandalism, assault and murder of Jews by the DSA friends of the progressives.
Big fan of most of the essay, but I found the part about people not wanting to debate live a bit odd. Far from being a more clear and rigorous format, I think debate is something of a novelty medium; there's a reason the majority of scientific discourse takes place on the medium which lets you carefully consider your words and claims, and not the medium where live gaffs are likely to make up a significant portion of the discourse.
Another point:
I think you're basically correct on the political power of guilt. Famously the unification church in Japan uses similar strategies based around WW2 guilt to drive donations for their cult, and I've seen at least one online social justice group fall prey to similar strategies from high profile scammer members.
You're right that I probably should've better shored up my point about live debates. I meant to link to this excellent post by Bentham's Bulldog but I forgot: https://benthams.substack.com/p/the-bluesky-way-of-arguing
Written discourse is perfectly fine for scientific discourse, because you generally can expect the participation of earnest truth-seekers. The utility of live debates shines most acutely when you're dealing with contentious topics where obfuscation and evasion are more common.
I just got around to reading Bethams blog post, and I think I feel similarly about it actually.
It seems to me, that less than debate being a useful medium, it's just that the default way of communicating on the internet is profoundly broken.
It's a bit of a controversial opinion, but I actually think debate is more vulnerable to bad faith than text. Famously, debate is the medium that gave rise to gish Gallup's, for example.
Maybe some form of fixed-length blog exchange would be the solution? I'm not sure though.
I can not express enough my appreciation for you bravely speaking out against the disgraceful treatment of Jews taking place throughout the world today.
Amazing. Thank you for sharing.
Grateful for your voice; thanks.
If only the Palestinian movement had listened to me a bit over fifty years ago, when I counseled them that pursuing a Gandhi or MLK style approach would be more successful. If they had, at very least there would have been a Palestinian West Bank and Gaza, no settler movement and no annexation of East Jerusalem, but who knows what else. Alas, the PLO of those days was unable to access my high school newspaper.
Yeah, okay, fair enough. If we want a binational state where people aren't constantly bumping each other off, shutting down genocidal talk from all sides might be a decent place to start.
Not to mention genocidal actions from the anti-Israel side.
Ok now I'm sure of it, I don't like your writing as much as before
Your vocabulary and syntax are just as impressive, but some sentences almost feel like AI slop
Also, about the subjects you cover, I think you're spending too much time worrying about the opinions of crazy morons, like "look what those guys are saying"
I'm not always against this style of writing, after all it's pretty much Blocked and Reported's whole shtick and they (mostly) make it work, but you really have to focus on what is interesting or surprising about the social dynamics at play, and I just don't feel like that's the case here, like I didn't learn much reading this
There's also the risk of the cowpox of doubt, as Scott put it. I think of you as someone who can tackle subtle subjects with nuance and honesty, but lately you mostly seem to revel in pointing out some people's lack of nuance and honesty
So yeah I guess I do think you write too much about antisemitism and the excesses of Palestinian activism, because even though it's probably a consequential and representative problem I just don't think it's that rich or interesting
I'll amend my statement by saying that I didn't feel this way about the last post on Freddie deBoer, I don't know much about the guy but it seems like he's dishonest in a relatively idiosyncratic way
I really appreciate that you take the time to give me feedback. It's valid to caution me against worrying about the opinions of crazy morons, but I think I sufficiently articulated why the stakes are not so limited here. This issue is a lot more "consequential" than "theatrical".
If you didn't learn anything new from this, I would posit it's much more an indication of how robust your knowledge/familiarity already is on this issue rather than me failing to provide something new. The response from detached normies to this has generally been of surprise and shock.
If my thesis comes off as revelry, that's not at all my aim. My intent with this essay was to speak clearly and directly about the stakes, not sugarcoat the problems, and yet also leave an empathy door open for anyone who disagrees with me. I have previously mentioned that persuasion is a difficult beast to tackle, and sometimes it requires "psychological games" (terrible phrase but best I can think of) in an attempt to shatter rigid frames. I'm always open to feedback on what specifically comes off as gratuitous or counterproductive.
Thanks for your gracious reply
I agree that the issue is consequential, and might be related to other consequential issues (I'm not a fan of Scott Aaronson's view of antisemitism as the nexus of all anti-intellectual bigotry but I wouldn't completely dismiss it)
It's just not that intellectually interesting to me
I spoke too strongly when I said I learned nothing; I should have said that what I learned didn't improve my understanding of SoCiEtY as much as I would have liked
I didn't realized the piece was aimed at normies, but I'm glad they liked it! I guess part of my reaction is nostalgia for the time when your writing was compatible with an audience of extremely-online rat-adjacent nerds
I also apologize for the word revel, it was harsher than what I meant
I'm not too concerned about your accusations or your tone being too harsh or counterproductive, but I do see a looming threat of empty shadenfreude and audience capture
Just something to keep in mind I guess
No need to apologize! Like I said, I really appreciate feedback and I'd rather people were less timid about giving it.
I think about audience capture at a degree that is likely unreasonable. I probably over-correct on this dimension because I've always had a core constitutional aversion to people too readily agreeing with me. Case in point: I was invited to be a speaker at a Zionist event and the general feedback was that I came off as very antagonistic because I elevated my disagreements much more.
Haha not bad, that's what you want
Yassine, splendid. Can’t wait until the only thing left to write about is your cats. Meanwhile, did you see how Portland lit their (un)Christmas tree then invited all the little children to scream “Free, free Palestine!” after apologizing for doing it all on stolen Native land? Good times…
You're joking, right? Portland didn't act out that much of a self-parody, did they?
Fox News and other sources reported:
“Portland, Oregon, is under fire for again hosting its annual Christmas tree lighting ceremony and nixing any mention of the Christian holiday, while leaders of the event instead waved a Palestinian flag and led the crowd in chants.
"Free, free, free Palestine," a woman holding a Palestinian flag on stage of the lighting event said while leading the crowd in a chant Friday evening, before also singing the "Strong Woman Song" while joined by the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs, which is a confederation of three native tribes in Oregon.
The event was decked out in Christmas lights, a traditionally decorated tree and a visit from Santa Claus, but did not promote any mention of Christmas, with organizers instead advertising the festive occasion as "Portland's 41st Annual Tree Lighting Ceremony," according to social media accounts for Pioneer Courthouse Square, where the tree is displayed.”
Greenpeace isn't that peaceful: https://newsletter.doomberg.com/p/environmental-justice.
And on Gaza, neither side has covered themselves in glory unfortunately. Hamas' actions have been obviously horrifying and Israel's response is unsurprising and the Palestinians (or at least the organizations getting any air time) have supported Hamas in their activities. And Israel in turn has caused immense amounts of destruction without (as far as I can tell...) actually eliminating Hamas as a going concern! What's to stop Hamas from re-establishing itself when Israel finally lets off?
The weak are judged by their obedience, the strong by their effectiveness. In this case, both have failed.
> And Israel in turn has caused immense amounts of destruction
I'd say "immense amounts of destruction" is a very bloodless way to put it. Israel has littered Gaza with dead bodies and small chunks of dead bodies, about 70,525 according to Wikipedia, 70% of them women and children.
About 1500 health workers have been killed, a figure that would make Putin's forces in Syria blush (the figures I found converge to around a thousand killed during the entire war). In multiple instances, the IDF slaughtered Red Crescent workers who had been coordinating their movements with IDF command, then lied about it and claimed they were Hamas militants, then backtracked and claimed it was an operational mistake after further proof came out.
I'm not gonna go into the engineered starvation, the systematic destruction of buildings, the use of civilians as human bomb detectors, the litany of recorded war crimes associated with the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, the whistleblower testimonies that Israel used AI with 90% accuracy (e.g. a 10% error rate) to produce targets and then systematically bombed them once they were home with their families, because there's just too much to cover.
Suffice to say that when the UN says Israel is committing genocide, it's based on documented facts, not just vibes.
EDIT: I initially cited the IAGS, but in retrospect I don't know who the "genocide scholars" in question are and Yassine makes a convincing point that they're not trustworthy. The UN's IICIOPT is better as an authoritative source, but in any case "this authoritative source said it was genocide" isn't really the kind of argument that convinces anyone.
I stand by my main point: it's a documented fact that Israel has killed enormous amounts of civilians, either deliberately or through neglect, and that those civilian deaths have been encouraged by both military and political leadership.
I'm shocked anyone still cites IAGS. The only requirement to join as a "genocide scholar" is $30, and even Adolf Hitler was on the roster.
https://honestreporting.com/30-and-you-can-become-a-genocide-scholar/
Fair enough, I should have looked them up before citing them as an authority.
It's not the main point of my post, though.
I fully acknowledge that was not the main point of your post, but it's perfectly relevant to point out how you breezily made a citation that was completely vacuous. "According to this organization anyone, including Hitler, can join" obviously gets interpreted very differently than "according to this organization of genocide scholars" and it's a worrying sign that you fell for it.
That doesn't necessarily mean your conclusions are wrong but at minimum, it should force you to acknowledge that you're not applying sufficient scrutiny to this topic.
Look, man, there's just a lot. Sometimes I do spend the time fact-checking everything (like when Tony Aguilar came forward and I spent a whole day looking up his background, his allegations, the GHF's counter-allegations, his counter-counter allegations, articles about the events he discussed, etc), sometimes among the 10 sources I find saying the same thing I have one that's not reputable and I don't notice.
When I *do* spend an afternoon knee-deep in documentation, what I usually find is that either the IDF demonstrably did the horrible thing it's accused of, or it's plausible the IDF did it but maybe it actually did a slightly less horrible but still immoral thing.
The fact that the IDF massacred red crescent workers and lied about it is well-documented: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rafah_paramedic_massacre https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_Hind_Rajab
The fact the IDF uses civilians as human shields is well-documented: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_shields_in_the_Israeli%E2%80%93Palestinian_conflict#Use_by_Israeli_forces
The "1500 health workers killed" figure is from the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry ; I haven't found if any of the sources that relayed it independently verified it, but so far the GHM has been widely considered as reliable (especially because it tends to publish only confirmed fatalities, aka dead people whose name they can report).
The "using AI to pick targets" story was published by The Guardian and +972 based on whistleblower testimonies. I haven't see any evidence it's false.
The fact that SRS used live ammunition as a means of crowd control during GHF distributions is extremely well-documented, if only because their official stance was "Yeah but we're shooting at the ground or over people, so it's okay".
So maybe I should have applied more scrutiny to the IAGS narrative. But I would have been more inclined to if the IDF didn't keep committing war crimes.
I'm not trying to single you out, I fully believe you're trying your best and appreciate your pushback but the issue I highlight is part of a much larger concern! Just imagine the flipside, if I had ever said "Well according to the Famine Scholar's Consortium, there is no starvation in Gaza" and then you found out FSC is an Israeli organization that allows anyone to join. I would force myself into retirement and never talk about this issue again!
And yet, even after the Adolf Hitler expose, journalists and activists are still repeatedly citing IAGS as a credible source! This is a shocking and inexcusable failure, and it's indicative of a much wider problem, something I wrote about before: https://www.ymeskhout.com/p/quick-lesson-on-media-literacy
One of the reasons writing on this topic takes me so much time is because I can no longer trust any source at face-value, and so I have to waste a lot of time tracking down original sources to ensure they say what others claim they say.
I would encourage you to try this yourself. Check page 140 of South Africa's opening ICJ brief ("Expressions of Genocidal Intent against the Palestinian People by Israeli State Officials and Others") https://www.icj-cij.org/sites/default/files/case-related/192/192-20231228-app-01-00-en.pdf
Randomly pick 5 citations within that section and see if you can track down the original statement in its original language and original context, and then honestly tell me which ones were reasonably interpreted as talking about ALL palestinians rather than just Hamas and other combatants. I'm absolutely sure you'll find some, but the portion will be instructive.
Pure libel
Yassine, splendid. Can’t wait until the only thing left to write about is your cats. Meanwhile did you see how Portland lit their (un)Christmas tree then invited all the little children to scream “Free, free Palestine!” after apologizing for doing it all on stolen Native land? Good times…