I know it’s natural to feel schadenfreude at the prospect of state collapse in Israel, but fwiw, I don’t look forward to it with any joy.
If this is the next phase, so be it. But it will be very, very ugly. The violent collapse of Israel will not lead to relief for Palestinians in the short term.
Still, I’ve said for years: what Israel is doing to the Palestinians they are doing to themselves. Watching the corrosion of Israeli society, their violence has always looked like a manic frenzy of mass-self harm.
The violent collapse of Israel will not lead to relief for Palestinians in the short term.
How so? Presumably they won’t have time to kill Palestinians if they’re too busy killing each other, and while that is a gruesome thought it’s not more gruesome than what’s already happening.
My suspicion is that a collapse in the Israeli state would look a lot like the present, spiraling out of anyone’s control: the settler terrorists would further ratchet up attacks in the West Bank; soldiers in the West Bank would harass and kill more brazenly, without fear of even the limited accountability that can come from a toothless denouncement or a suspension. Soldiers in Gaza might move from checkpoints and bombing runs to militia pogroms driving through streets gunning down civilians. The limited protections for the relatively privileged Arabs & non-Jews within the '48 borders could evaporate: mobs dragging women from their homes for sexual violence and murder in the daylit streets. And all of this would likely be in a shroud of fog, as the limited journalistic capacity that occasionally breaks through to international attention is drowned out by attention on riots in the imperial core of the nation.
In the long term, this could be a step towards a better future. But in the short term I would expect a shift from organized military-led genocide to a more traditional form of rabid mass ethnic killing.
It’s hard to believe, but Israel currently has restraint. Yes, they’re slow-motion genociding the Palestinians in a grindingly cruel manner, but the reason it’s slow-motion is because they have endless debates and factions and desire not to completely rip their masks off while the rest of the world watches and could maybe react on some level.
If Israel turns into full blown civil war all that restraint goes away. If you’re already at the point where you’re willing to gun down fellow Jews, why not mow down a bunch of Palestinian refugees along the way? If you’re not even in control of all of Israel, where can you move Palestinians to get them out of your way? Just kill 'em.
I have no idea what is best in the short term. I have no idea what is best in the long term. Israel is just fucked. I wish there was some way for all the people who want to kill each other to just go ahead and do that without everyone else getting trapped in the crossfire.
I’ve said for years: what Israel is doing to the Palestinians they are doing to themselves.
wow. that is honestly the first original thought I have heard about the ongoing troubles between these 2 groups of people fighting over the same land, both claiming it to be their own, exclusively…
something in the same spirit, but from a different era, different war…
Yeah if you think Lebanon’s political breakup was messy…
This would make that look like child’s play.
Yeah.
I know it’s natural to feel schadenfreude at the prospect of state collapse in Israel, but fwiw, I don’t look forward to it with any joy.
If this is the next phase, so be it. But it will be very, very ugly. The violent collapse of Israel will not lead to relief for Palestinians in the short term.
Still, I’ve said for years: what Israel is doing to the Palestinians they are doing to themselves. Watching the corrosion of Israeli society, their violence has always looked like a manic frenzy of mass-self harm.
How so? Presumably they won’t have time to kill Palestinians if they’re too busy killing each other, and while that is a gruesome thought it’s not more gruesome than what’s already happening.
My suspicion is that a collapse in the Israeli state would look a lot like the present, spiraling out of anyone’s control: the settler terrorists would further ratchet up attacks in the West Bank; soldiers in the West Bank would harass and kill more brazenly, without fear of even the limited accountability that can come from a toothless denouncement or a suspension. Soldiers in Gaza might move from checkpoints and bombing runs to militia pogroms driving through streets gunning down civilians. The limited protections for the relatively privileged Arabs & non-Jews within the '48 borders could evaporate: mobs dragging women from their homes for sexual violence and murder in the daylit streets. And all of this would likely be in a shroud of fog, as the limited journalistic capacity that occasionally breaks through to international attention is drowned out by attention on riots in the imperial core of the nation.
In the long term, this could be a step towards a better future. But in the short term I would expect a shift from organized military-led genocide to a more traditional form of rabid mass ethnic killing.
It’s hard to believe, but Israel currently has restraint. Yes, they’re slow-motion genociding the Palestinians in a grindingly cruel manner, but the reason it’s slow-motion is because they have endless debates and factions and desire not to completely rip their masks off while the rest of the world watches and could maybe react on some level.
If Israel turns into full blown civil war all that restraint goes away. If you’re already at the point where you’re willing to gun down fellow Jews, why not mow down a bunch of Palestinian refugees along the way? If you’re not even in control of all of Israel, where can you move Palestinians to get them out of your way? Just kill 'em.
I have no idea what is best in the short term. I have no idea what is best in the long term. Israel is just fucked. I wish there was some way for all the people who want to kill each other to just go ahead and do that without everyone else getting trapped in the crossfire.
wow. that is honestly the first original thought I have heard about the ongoing troubles between these 2 groups of people fighting over the same land, both claiming it to be their own, exclusively…
something in the same spirit, but from a different era, different war…