427 Comments

Balanced, respectful and interesting. Thank you for contributing. The US is lucky to have you as a citizen.

It is interesting that you mentioned North Korea toward the end of your essay, as that was in my mind as I read along. I feel terrible for the innocent people in Gaza, essentially held hostage by a terrorist organization and conscripted into the Hamas campaign against Israel. As in many wars, it is the civilian population that pays the greatest price.

All the more reason to support resistance movements against totalitarian-style governments in Iran, North Korea, Gaza and elsewhere.

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"I feel terrible for the innocent people in Gaza, essentially held hostage by a terrorist organization"

Not trying make a pedantic point but I feel like the Gaza citizens are in a worse situation than "held hostage". Sinwar's strategic goal is to increase civilian deaths. These people are being murdered by their own government.

https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/gaza-chiefs-brutal-calculation-civilian-bloodshed-will-help-hamas-626720e7

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I liked the article but would have loved one written by someone who had spent the last year in Gaza.

One question the essay doesn’t really answer— how has Hamas held on to power? Are there rival groups who would like to replace it? Why haven’t they killed the Hamas cadres and seized power? If I were a young man is Gaza, I would be very angry, and killing Hamas operatives would be a more productive outlet for my rage than killing Israelis.

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"I liked the article but would have loved one written by someone who had spent the last year in Gaza."

That would be good too!

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Have some sympathy for those living under a totalitarian regime. Choosing to fight Hamas would almost certainly result in your death, and likely the death of your entire family. We should encourage those who do so, but I understand the human impulse to survive rather than take up arms against your oppressor.

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I admire the French who resisted and pity those who did not. My feelings in Gaza are similar.

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The contrast between your opinion on this versus Ukraine is striking.

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No kidding.

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Seeking “consistency” in foreign policy is generally silly when there is huge diversity of circumstances.

For the French, resistance made much more sense in June of 1944 than July of 1940.

Nor have I ever said Ukraine should capitulate. I have said it should negotiate. At least a third of Ukrainians agree with me. In any event, the odds Ukraine will ever exercise sovereignty over all of Donetsk and Luhansk are slim, and few of the hawks on this sub stack are willing to admit that.

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As has been repeatedly pointed out to you, Ukraine negotiated with Russia continuously for 8 straight years, after Russia initially seized 14% of Ukrainian territory. They were brokered by France and Germany. How did those negotiations work out? Russia ended them right before invading the second time

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minsk_agreements

Russia has seized about 270 square miles of Donetsk this year- for perspective, they'd need to seize 4000 square miles to get all of Donetsk. They're also by all accounts taking over 1000 casualties a day, because eventually mass human wave attacks runs out of, you know, humans. The odds Russia will ever exercise sovereignty over all of Donetsk and Luhansk are slim, so they should give up now

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There is literally a Wikipedia article about this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peace_negotiations_in_the_Russian_invasion_of_Ukraine

How has Ukraine failed to negotiate?

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What you never acknowledge is that negotiation requires a counter-party willing to negotiate. In both conflicts, Israel/Palestinian and Ukraine/Russia, there is an absence of a counter-party to negotiate with can provide believable commitments. So the call for negotiation in that context equates to capitulation.

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Less than 2% of the French people ever "resisted", and it's worth remembering that even those few were receiving extensive outside help and were pretty sure that massive Allied armies would eventually arrive on their shores --- motivated by their own interests as much as any desire to help the French.

None of that aid, or hope, or external self interest did exist or does exist for Gaza. For it to have any parallel you would have to imagine an Israeli government that saw successful governance and Gazan self-determination as consistent with its own interests. The Israeli government took just about exactly the opposite approach.

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'Less than 2% of the French people ever "resisted"'

My understanding is that polls taken of the French population immediately after the war revealed that 100% of the French people were part of the Resistance.

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"'I have done that,' says my memory. 'I cannot have done that,"'says my pride, and remains inexorable. Eventually -- memory yields."

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They became part of it after it ended.

Someday, nobody will have ever been anti-zionists in this present we're living through.

Until then we'll have to deal with some pretty ugly anti-zionism.

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We admire people who resist a terrible regime because it's a brave, scary, and *uncommon* thing to do. Everyone, myself included, likes to believe that they'll find the courage to take a stand and risk everything, including the lives of their children, if or when the time comes, but history shows that most people can't bring themselves to really face the consequences of that kind of act.

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What a ridiculously callous thing to say from the warmth and comfort of your safe, functioning society. I, too, admire you for your bravery - you might have sprained a wrist typing out that comment, after all.

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I feel the same when qualms about taking Russian deserters come up, claiming that they should instead stand and fight, often from comfortable westerners who've never even seen a gun outside of a tutting NYTimes article. A common trait among sensible, socialable people is that they just want to live and be left alone. Such folks are a credit to any society, but also exactly the last sort of person who'd pick up a bloody flag and continue a hopeless fight. Responding "well maybe they should" just feels so confusing to me.

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I think the answer is simple, it’s a military dictatorship. The rival groups, like PIJ, are all even more violent, but ultimately have the same goals. Recall that Hamas violently purged fatah members from Gaza shortly after takeover.

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This is the part of the essay that doesn’t make sense to me. The rest of the essay I appreciate. At the end, there is this assertion, unsupported by evidence, that the Gazans will throw off Hamas. How? Hamas and Sinwar in particular are very good at killing Gazans.

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There's a tendency of essays like this to try to end with a solution, path forward, etc., even when the odds of such a future are sadly very small.

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Yes, but there is no plan. This is just a vague hope and assertion that Gaza is tired of Hamas. Ok, suppose I accept that. What next? PIJ?

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Yeah, it's weak because the situation is incredibly bleak.

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Agreed, James. I dearly pray he's right and he certainly speaks from an experience basis that none of us shares. But I fear that hope and desire may be triumphing over analysis here.

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I don't know if there's much point in writing an article that says Palestine is doomed to another century of misery. You start with a vision, even if you have nothing else.

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The thesis of the piece is that they should do so, and its aim is to encourage Palestinians and their allies to focus on doing so. Accordingly, it is trying to persuade them that this is a good idea as well as a noble expression of Palestinian virtues and a path to future glory. It would be weird if it took a pessimistic tone (however justified that pessimism may be).

Churchill didn’t say “well we COULD fight the on the beaches, although of course at that point they must have established air superiority and we would certainly be slaughtered, and in fact Britain would likely surrender and install a friendly collaborator government just like France” for good reasons!

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Yes, but Churchill had an army and a government and economic levers he could pull. I really doubt this essay was aimed at Gazans, especially since it is in English in Slow Boring. The lack of reality and ridiculously optimistic dreaming by many actors on I/P issues is one of the larger problems preventing solutions.

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I think it was aimed at the diaspora and sympathetic people abroad, mostly. Build support for the “ditch Hamas” position.

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That's not really the way it works in war when your fear and hatred are focused on the people attacking you. The same thing could be asked of Israel: given Bibi's unprecedented combination of failures and continuing betrayal of the national interest, why hasn't there been a more sustained popular effort* to force him to resign, including a general strike?

* Note that this could also include negotiations, like offering to drop all charges against him if he retires from politics.

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Honestly I’ve wondered that myself. If I were Israeli I’d be going to anti-Bibi protests at every opportunity for the last 2 years. My best answer is that Israelis are worried about the possibility that there’s a disruptive, toxic election and he somehow retains power.

The parallels with Trump are really innumerable (and therefore scary for America; I guess Israel hasn’t actually collapsed yet, so we can hope that whoever takes advantage of Trump’s weakness doesn’t do so catastrophically.)

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Is anyone offering to arm such people?

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More from Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib

https://thedispatch.com/article/hamas-monstrous-gazans-agree/

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Excellent link

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Oct 11Edited

This is one of the things that makes the idea that Israel engages in a dehumanization campaign against Palestinians a little absurd to me as a complaint. Nearly all the important Palestinian organizations engage in dehumanizing Palestinians and it's a core part of the identity their advocates present to the world!

It makes sense for many of them to do this, being at least descended from militarized groups which need that for military discipline at a minimum. But it does have pernicious effects like any campaign to present the people as barbarous just quoting their leadership and advocates.

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It is very sad that people are forced to work for Hamas. But are they really "innocent" any more? Are you still a "civilian" if you are working for a terrorist organization? By this logic, every Nazi soldier was an innocent civilian.

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Oct 11
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If I thought the United States was an evil force in the world, then I would feel complicit, like I was morally obligated to leave, or to fight against it.

However, I think the United States is a force for good in the world. So "complicit" isn't the right word, because it has a negative connotation. Instead, I feel a sense of pride, to be an American citizen.

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Given the article asserts, without evidence, that "the people of Gaza are done with Hamas and want nothing to do with Islamism, terrorism, or future suicidal adventurism":

Below is a Palestinian-run poll finding 35% support for Hamas and 39% support for the 7/10 attacks in Gaza. The IDF has accused Hamas of messing with this pollster's methodology but itself puts support for 7/10 in Gaza at over 30%.

https://www.pcpsr.org/en/node/991

https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/rejecting-idf-claims-palestinian-pollster-says-highly-unlikely-hamas-falsified-its-results-but-vows-to-probe/

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The author wrote about this poll a few days ago: https://thedispatch.com/article/hamas-monstrous-gazans-agree/

Notably, there he cites a Western-run poll (by Zogby), showing 7% Gazan support for Hamas remaining in power, and that more blame Hamas than Israel for the war: https://institute.global/insights/geopolitics-and-security/tbi-comment-new-polling-by-zogby-research-services-reveals-palestinian

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The original writer also mentioned that "an awakening by many Palestinians" is needed to reach this peaceful goal. Recent polls still state that armed struggle has a majority support. Regardless of whether Gazans support Hamas or not, if they just want another armed struggle alternative it doesn't seem to me like they're abandoning terrorism, right?

https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/poll-shows-rise-support-armed-struggle-by-palestinians-2024-06-13/

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I’m worried about people getting out over their skis. The PCPSR has been the pre-eminent source for polling Palestinians for decades, presumably not by accident. Moreover the articles describing the document the IDF found are extremely light on details. For example: how, in a randomized telephone poll, does Hamas manage to get in between the pollster and the respondents? It’s worth noting that Shikaki, the leader of the PCPSR, is adamant that his results are of high quality.

I would really, really like to believe that Fuad and the IDF (and this Zogby outfit that I’ve never heard of before) are right. It would mean that there is hope for peace with Gaza next door (because frankly I don’t see how there can be peace with a society that, having gone through what they’ve just gone through, still supports the 10/7 massacre.) But this is one of those situations where Matt’s hot take that “getting the empirical facts right matters quite a bit” is relevant.

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7% for Hamas only, 17% for a Hamas-Fateh unity government. As several other people on this thread have written, the way violence works, 24% support for violence is more than enough for a conflict to persist. (Applies on the Israeli side too, it doesn't take that many settlers terrorising Palestinians in the West Bank to commit the entire country to the conflict that emanates from that.)

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I think the belief that this conflict emanates from settler violence is pernicious. I have a hard time believing that Hizballah would be incapacitated if settler violence stopped.

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I didn't mean to imply that. But they still have an impact far disproportionate to their numbers, for the reason Dave Coffin describes below. If ever there is peace between Israel and the Palestinians I worry these extremists would try to blow it up and Israel will have to exert significant effort to prevent them from doing so. (As will the Palestinians with their own dead-enders).

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Agreed. It would be a great thing for Israelis, Palestinians, and the world if the residents of Gaza dedicated themselves to peaceful development. It would be a miracle. Unfortunately, I’m not holding my breath.

And the tragedy is that even if 90% of Gazans wanted peaceful development, if 10% of the strip is comprised of terrorists and people aiding terrorists, it’s still a threat that Israel will have to respond to in ways that harm the 90%.

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I feel like this is key. It's not sufficient for most Gazans to not be terrorists. There have to be enough Gazans willing and able to exert forceful control over the Gazans who are terrorists to secure a peaceful relationship with their neighbor. If the non-terrorist Gazans can't or won't prevent Hamas from taking them to war with Israel then they all suffer because that's a war Israel will win every time..

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This is the story in all the relevant cases: in Gaza, in Iran, and most importantly in Lebanon. Majority of Lebanese don’t support Hizballah; but the vast majority of Lebanese are too traumatized from decades of civil war and don’t want to be the ones to deal with Hizballah.

Well, if they don’t, Israel has no choice but to deal with Hizballah themselves.

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Not if the 90% got the 10% under control through their own police and security forces.

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This is a good essay, but it kind of all hangs on a core assumption that seems barely plausible to me let alone likely:

"After this war, the extent of the destruction and damage that Gazans have experienced means that they will never again, under any circumstances, allow a rogue terror organization to hold them hostage in the name of fighting Israel"

This is simply an assertion without evidence. If there wasn't the will/capacity to depose Hamas a year ago how are Gazans supposed to suppress the islamist death cult now? Where are these internal Gazan anti-Hamas fighters going to come from? How are they going to arm themselves? How are they not simply going to get themselves killed, unless the assumption is that Israel has really truly wiped out Hamas for them?

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I take it that this is like the statement in wedding vows that we will be together till death do us part. It’s not based on evidence about similar situations in the past - it’s a wishful statement of commitment that is appropriate for the occasion.

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Why is it a barely plausible assumption? Losing a catastrophic war has enormous consequences for all kinds of human polities. That's often why they're so bitterly fought until exhaustion; the stakes of losing are very high for incumbent political leaders.

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True, but the whole history of Palestine back to 1948 has been about a people refusing to accept the reality of losing war after war after war.

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Your point is well argued, and I don't really think I have any substantive disagreements with it. I would just note that demographics might provide some opportunity for change. The author mentioned at one point in the essay that half of population of Gaza is very young. If this is the first time they have witnessed destruction of this scale brought on by the atrocities committed by Hamas, maybe that at least inspires a will to move beyond Hamas. I agree that that "will" may lack a "way" for the time being.

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They’ve started many wars and lost all of them. The nakba was a war that they started and lost (literally - the disaster referred to Arabs losing to Jews, not Palestinian displacement).

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The critical difference here is the leaders of The Arab League were on their side back then, and now it's an embarrassment to all of them while they quietly ask Israel to crush these political movements. That is a very important context to why Israel has been able to prosecute such a bloody war; Arab country *leaders* in the region are on better terms with them than ever in history.

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Frankly I don’t think it’s been catastrophic enough. I desperately hope that I’m wrong.

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I consider this optimistic as well - I'd be interested in a historical analysis

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I truly, deeply, appreciate the decision to run a piece by someone from Gaza today. It was surely not an easy decision but it's the right one.

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For the record, I don't particularly think that this was a uniquely "right" decision — we could have gone in other directions. But the game here is we run one piece per day and I thought this was a good one that the world and our readers would benefit from.

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I do think tomorrow would have been a better day for this piece.

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Disagree. Today is the correct day to have these conversations. And nothing the author said was disrespectful to the victims of October 7th.. in fact he was incredibly sympathetic.

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I give the author a lot of credit - 99.9% of people with his background would have nothing but hate and contempt for Israelis. That being said, while he certainly isn't carrying water for Hamas I found this particular section to be questionable:

"It was Friday night, October 6, in San Francisco, when I saw the attacks unfold; I was devastated and extremely concerned with what I knew was about to happen. I immediately realized the catastrophe that would be unleashed upon the people of Gaza, and that the Strip’s residents, including my immediate and extended family members, would suffer unprecedented consequences due to Hamas’s narrow and nefarious calculus."

This is a piece that ran on 10/7 and the author is silent about the atrocities that happened to Israelis. He easily could've said "I was devastated about what happened to the innocent Israelis...." but simply chose not to put his empathy for those affected by 10/7 on paper.

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I’m fine with it because I’ve read enough of Fuad’s writing and posting to know that he has spoken out about Hamas’ barbarity.

Vibe I get is that this piece is actually aimed at Palestinians. The bona fides of “Israel is fighting a war of revenge” etc. etc. seem to be there to provide cover for “time to recognize Israel’s legitimacy”.

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People seem to agree with you, but I think today can be a day of incredible sorrow for 10/7 and everything has ensued.

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Why do you think it was the right decision? I disagree, personally (though I love the piece itself, just not the context).

Jews are so often told that grieving their loved ones is somehow *wrong*. E.g. that article in the Guardian called "How Israel has made trauma a weapon of war".

Almost everyone in Israel knows someone who lost a loved one to a depraved invasion and terror attack, and has been living in trauma since then. I think it's odd not to give space for that grief, whatever else you think.

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Having one article describe the situation Gazans currently face and the historical context they're in is not a denail of the right of Israelis to grive their loved ones in any reasonable sense.

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I don't think this article is denying that at all. I was referring to the choice to run this piece today specifically, as well as the parent comment saying it's the "correct choice", which seems to imply (in my mind) that it would *incorrect* to run an article focusing on the tragedy to Israelis.

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I think that Jews have felt since October 7 that they are constantly “All Lives Mattered”.

People can’t talk about antisemitism without talking about Islamophobia in the same sentence. People can’t commemorate October 7 victims without turning the attention towards Gaza.

Attention to both issues is important. But we shouldn’t not crowd out attention to Jewish issues, security and suffering, especially in this time.

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Because 10x+ as many Palestinians have died in the last year than Israelis, and the non-death toll has been even more lopsided. It's weird for people outside of Israeli (which is reasonably going to care a lot more about their citizens than Palestinians) to specifically call out the equivalent of "Israeli Lives Matter" given those numbers.

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More Afghanis died in the Afghanistan War than on Sept 11. Still on Sept 11, we commemorate the people who lost their lives in the Twin Towers and in the planes, not the people who were hurt in the war fought with the government who was harboring the terrorists who committed that attack.

And the reason more Palestinians have died in the last year than Israelis, despite the fact that Palestinian militants target Israeli civilians while Israeli soldiers do not target Palestinian ones is due to the policy decisions of the Gazan government, which put civilians in harms way and of the Israeli government, which protect civilians.

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Oct 7
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You are commenting on an article about suffering in Gaza to complain that suffering in Israel isn't highlighted enough - that is like the definition of All-Lives-Mattering something.

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The article is entitled “A Year Later”. Today is October 7. A year later from what?

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Too many people are suffering

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I agree with you on the insistence of pairing antisemitism with Islamophobia, but 40x as many Palestinians have died in response to 10/7. Gaza has been totally flattened. Matt has been clear that he thinks a 1SS of any kind is a perverse fantasy. He has the standing to grieve for all the lives lost.

Also, on any day, it's refreshing to hear a Palestinian voice that recounts the terrible suffering he's witnessed, and even endured himself, while not finishing with "and that's why Israel should be wiped off the map." If he can advocate for 2S, surely everyone else can.

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How in God's name does a two-state solution work at this point? Gaza is nearly leveled, the West Bank is carved up by settlements, and the two pieces of a hypothetical Palestinian state are separated by Israel and governed by two different entities that hate each other. The Israeli government is opposed to the idea and they hold all the cards - most Arab neighbors want to ally with Israel, they're a nuclear weapons state, Iran's rocket attacks, both direct and via proxies, seem ineffective, and Palestinians are in no state to mount a Third Intifada, which wouldn't have any chance of success even if it were launched.

Israel is the winner in its conflict with the Palestinians. That victory may turn out to be Pyrrhic economically, or culturally, or diplomatically, but the Israeli state isn't going anywhere and it won't allow a Palestinian state.

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I don’t think it would have been *incorrect*, but while the October 7th attacks were bad for Israeli civilians, they were even worse for Gazans. The Israeli perspective is well-represented in mainstream media, but the Gazans perspective is not (there are many Palestinian-sympathetic pieces in left-wing media, but that is not the same. In particular, they don’t have a takeaway remotely similar to the takeaway of this article).

If Matt had published an Israeli piece today, and person A had said “this was the correct choice,” and person B said “this denies the right of Palestinians to grieve their loved ones,” would you have agreed with person B?

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The Israeli response to October 7 and the resulting damage in Gaza didn't start till well after October 7. You could choose another date to symbolically commemorate the hardship of Gazans in this war. October 7 is the anniversary of one of the largest terror attacks in history targeting Jewish and non-Jewish Israelis.

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I don't see how this is even remotely controversial. There's 364 other days in the year in which the plight of Gazans can and should be written about. For example, the anniversary of Israel's incursion into Gaza is in a few weeks - it would be just as meaningful to write about the plight of Gazans on that day.

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At least 30% of Gazans and 70% of Palestinians in the West Bank disagree with you and think that the October 7 attacks were good for them, or at least were worth the cost.

You and I may disagree, but this is what polling suggests. You can’t just explain that away. They are genuine in believing this.

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30% is disturbingly high if accurate, but I don’t see how this contradicts my point - the majority of Gazans do *not* think October 7 worked well for them, and in material terms they have suffered the most

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It feels like you're making Brian's point: if "[ultimately] worse for Gazans" is a sound justification, then we should mark September 11th by discussing the deaths of Afghanis, and December 7th by discussing the deaths at Hiroshima. I suppose we have done this with Columbus Day by shifting focus away from the explorer/invaders and onto indigenous peoples, but I think it's fair to argue that one year is too soon to make that switch, and that waiting a day would have been more respectful.

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I've seen a few people referencing a parent comment saying this was the correct choice, but I'm not seeing anything. Can you point out what you're referencing there? I'm wondering if something was deleted that I logged on too late to see.

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Thanks! I figured that couldn't be the one because the top reply to that statement (with many more likes) is MY saying that he didn't think this was a uniquely correct decision, just one of many plausible ones that are acceptable. The fact that a commenter on here thought it was THE right decision isn't all that relevant to me, especially given all the other comments on here arguing the opposite.

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Running it on 10/7 when there are 364 other days in the year is certainly a strange decision.

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I am entirely sympathetic to Israel, and could only be described as having hawkish views. But I fail to see how running this article today is disrespectful or inappropriate.

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Yeah, it's just the thing where partisans to the IP conflict are always trying to delegitimize the suffering* of the "other side" ("They started it!" etc) while centering the suffering of "their side." It's a common tactic that is both morally obtuse and pretty annoying but quite common.

Personally I think the author's perspective is often overlooked and so I think it's good Matt had it published.

*For an opposite example see the ridiculous and offensive attempts to claim their wasn't any sexual violence on 10/7.

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Imagine it is Sept 11, 2002. Do you highlight the voices of families grieving the loss of their family members on 9/11 and honor the first responders? Or do you highlight the Saudi or Afghani perspective, even a relatively moderate one? Try to put yourself in that position and maybe you’ll try to understand.

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I think to be fair, the enemy death toll was not remotely close on 9/11/2002 to what it is in I/P. But I understand why people are upset.

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It’s not disrespectful or inappropriate but reeks of contrarianism.

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I don't think that is an accurate description of his reaction as conveyed in this piece. At least my read on his statement was that he had two reactions:

1) Devastated

2) Concerned about what would happen next

My assumption was 'devastated about the fact of the attack' and 'concerned about what would happen next in Gaza.' Which, honestly, was my reaction too. A tragedy that was going to unleash further tragedies...

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My immediate reaction on October 7th was the exact same as the author's.

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These are the author's exact words:

"It was Friday night, October 6, in San Francisco, when I saw the attacks unfold; I was devastated and extremely concerned with what I knew was about to happen. I immediately realized the catastrophe that would be unleashed upon the people of Gaza, and that the Strip’s residents, including my immediate and extended family members, would suffer unprecedented consequences due to Hamas’s narrow and nefarious calculus."

Not one word about the scores of innocent people murdered that day.

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I guess I read this a bit more as the piece trying to reach people who are more sympathetic to the Palestinian side. The default American (and liberal, and American Jewish) position is, "sure, two states, please everyone stop killing each other." So there's nothing particularly challenging or interesting about a liberal/Jewish/American saying that to other liberals/Jews/Americans.

A *Palestinian* speaking to Palestinians/American leftists about the reality of Israel's existence is interesting and challenging. And it needs to start by emphasizing to Palestinians and leftists that Hamas assessed the risk of tens of thousands of Palestinian casualties, and found it acceptable. It wasn't an act of plucky resistance, but a massive betrayal of the people they are charged with protecting.

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Alkhatib doesn’t represent the “Palestinian” side, or at least a common perspective on the Palestinian side. Even though he is Palestinian, his perspective that Palestinians should accept the Jewish state and move on and focus on building next to it is extremely rare in Palestinian society. It takes Alkhatib a lot of courage to take his position in Palestinian society, where the overall ethos is that the establishment of a Jewish state is the biggest injustice that can only be rectified when it is undone.

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