"Given that their neighbors—and, to my personal shame as an American, quite a lot of Americans—have already shown that they are burning up with anti-Semitic hatred, I really don’t see why Israel should consider world response in its calculus." I agree. They really shouldn't care what we think. It's time for some people to stop caring what others think and stand up for themselves, enforce boundaries. But it's an awful situation, and I am thankful I'm not making those horrible decisions.
I won’t put a like on it, because it’s an unpleasant topic. I read it because I wanted to know if your thinking was opposite what you’ve expressed. Thankfully it’s not.
I consider myself honest and reasonably principled, but like the hypothetical scenario where my kid decides he doesn’t want to drive, I would not have as much trouble as you describe. The thief is gone on his first entry. The rest works itself out.
I don’t think it’s the best analogy either, but I get your point.
Here’s a thought: It is true that by using human shields, even placing a headquarters beneath a hospital, the attackers are depending on the religious and principled restraint of Israelis to protect themselves. It is only necessary to choose targets more carefully.
Wouldn’t it be a good thing if all of humankind was better at handling their emotions? As in, able to dismiss hatred.
Thank you for this wonderful piece of sanity! As I wrote to Josh Slocum about his video this week, I am Jewish. I am the aging child r of Holocaust survivors who are, thankfully, all passed away; the last one was my aunt, my mother’s younger sister, who died at 95 in 2022. It is a blessing they are not around to feel the anguish of what could be another Holocaust. I, myself, am an unapologetic Zionist and this past week has been a nightmare for me and my Israeli friends. I’m also an American, born and bred, who has always revered the principles on which our nation was built. To be blunt, the fight in Israel is for the future of the Jewish people everywhere AND it is a battle for the future of the West, for the values that have enabled America to build the freest, most multi-ethnic, and prosperous nation that has ever existed and which is deeply in danger now. So thank you for understanding and speaking out. My support of your substack is assured!
Well thought out piece. I agree completely. At first, I wasn't sure where you were going with the psycho neighbor analogy, but it was brilliant. Terrorists have used our morality against us this way for decades. There is a film starring Samuel L. Jackson called Rules of Engagement (2000) that turns their tactics into a thriller. We've known this for years in the West, and somehow we are forgetting that they are manipulating the game now? Why would that be? The answer is clear: Hamasaki is not like us, and they revel in it. They hate the Jews and us THAT much. It doesn't stop with the genocide of Jews. They are coming for us, too. This is Maoism 2.0 - Marxist hate on steroids.
If this tactic is allowed to succeed, not just to garner the world's sympathy and support, then they will try very hard to set up a new caliphate. Why would they not?
This matches my own understanding of their theology. I thought about mentioning it, but I didn't need it for my argument and also didn't want to invite a bunch of "Akchually....true Islam is peaceful" responses. 😬
Yeah, that's why I was specific when I said they are a cult subset. There are different sects with varying degrees of peaceful sentiment, but none are strict pacifists, and all share an ancient anti-Semitism that gives them a certain kinship with the Nazis. They were overt allies of the Axis in WW2.
My four closest friends are all so insanely smart that it's a little terrifying, so I am constantly surrounded by intellectual rigor. I pray it rubs off on me.
I just shared this essay. My comment with the share is "Holly is one of the smartest nobody’s I’ve ever come across. Read this. It’s long. Stick it out. You won’t regret it."
Consider yourself rubbed to a fine intellectual shine.
Holly, I can't help but to share your rage about this situation and about the idiots who parrot the "yeah but Israel" chant. They are disingenuous at best but more likely damaging to any prospect of peace. Thanks for bringing home the message on intersectionality as it relates to why we (as a country) tolerate certain types of extremism. I think that your subscribers might increase... and the ones you lose don't deserve you anyway.
What, no one's yet written an interminable rambling comment? Fine, I'll bite lol.
Like most things what I find troublesome is not the issue of itself but behavior and observations of human nature and social dynamics. I think most people would have no problem with your logic, it's just the amount of reductionism at the outset was disturbing. You display more nuance than a lot of people did, even as you arrive at a pragmatic conclusion (not to be confused with solution). A prominent example is Joel Pollak, editor in chief (or something) of Breitbart. The other Saturday he proclaimed that he was breaking Shabbat to say that Gaza should be leveled. It wasn't just anon accounts saying this. Only after a few days did I notice the use of "Hamas" instead of "Palestinians", and the following Saturday (yesterday) Pollak apologized for his indiscriminate sentiments, while maintaining his overall stance. In retrospect I feel foolish for expecting more from people. Tribalism is the default, no matter how proud westerners are of the west. Of course people were going to respond this way. (Despite my disdain for humanity I'm still an idealist it seems.)
It wasn't the arguments themselves "let's not conflate the citizens with the leaders" but the callousness of "they voted for it." I guarantee that almost everyone just recently learned, as I did, that about half (45-50%) of Palestinians are children and the last Palestinian election was 17 years ago, making half the population not even alive when it happened. You don't have to opine one way or another to be bothered by "fuck around and find out, gametes and embryos!" I'm too stupid to have an opinion one way or another but I will always reject the utterance of a non-prevailing opinion (it doesn't even have to be an opinion) as anathema. The same exact thing happened with Ukraine. If someone dispassionately explained events in the past that catalyzed current events you were called a Putin apologist. If you explain the very long history of the middle east that catalyzed these events you're called a terrorist sympathizer, even a Holocaust denier if they're feeling generous. (As if wokeness hasn't already largely nullified the meaning of such labels.)
I'm an American first and foremost, so I have no opinion on the outcome. Also I am mixed race, and unburdened by white western cultural guilt, which heavily informs opinion, regardless of which ethnicity people support in this conflict. I never felt kinship with any of my ethnicities, which can be lonely, but it also helps inoculate me against identitarian thinking. My personal reactance comes not from empathy but the demonization of caution or skepticism. One doesn't even need to go back far in history, as "stay home, save lives" in 2020 had echoes of Bush 43-era "you're either with us or with the terrorists." It happened with those skeptical of virus and lockdown in March 2020, it happened with Ukraine, and last week was the anniversary of the "babies in incubators" testimony that galvanized support for Bush 41's Iraq invasion (which was going to happen anyway). To paraphrase Charlton Heston my skepticism (of EVERYONE, especially during wartime) will be pried from my cold dead hands. No shame or stigma will move me.
While you made no claims that intersectionality is the only thing causing this one large piece missing from this is immigration. Two observations blew my mind. When I saw people in shock about pro-Hamas protests, "how could this happen in western liberal societies???" I was dumbfounded. Liberal pluralism, duh. Around this time Pollak himself suggested Palestinian refugees be allowed temporary asylum in the US. What?? Those people don't share our values, but let them in? My bias is that those gung-ho for immigration are rooted entirely in emotion and people wondering how we got here aren't exactly dispelling that bias. No, I don't want the people whom allies of the US are at war with to come here. This is not based solely on current events but on philosophy.
One of the many, many things I've thought about since you wrote your pieces about the founding of the USA is how everyone crows about the USA being special for being the only nation in history founded on ideals. So why let just anyone in, if the key to our uniqueness is this set of very explicit and singular values? "What, do you hate brown people?" or "everyone deserves a better life" are not sufficient justifications. If a destitute hardcore communist shows up at the immigration office I would have no qualms whatsoever denying them, the same way I'd turn away refugees from the country our allies just bombed. Letting in someone whose values are antithetical to yours is short-sighted, if not suicidal. I don't know how you screen for this but given that it is our express values that set us apart from every other nation in human history this has to be accounted for. American values are special and worth protecting or they aren't.
(re: anarchism it's not just no centralized authority, but devolution of authority. There wouldn't be no security agencies, there would be multiple rather than one. Privatization would have the same issues as we currently have, but it's better than a monopoly, in which you have no recourse. From what I can tell anarchists explicitly admit that it would not be a utopia (unlike most ideologies- anarchism is not even an ideology) there is only dealing with problems as they come. In addition to privatization of security other people besides you would notice the asshole neighbor. He wouldn't be running amok for that long. Anyway, I'm not an anarchist nor am I not here to defend it. I'm just aware of the arguments and characterizations for and against. This is my limited understanding)
While not a libertarian nor anarchist (I refuse to label myself) I believe all states are the problem. If you're a government you deserve scrutiny, regardless of your ethnic status. I vehemently reject the idea of protected classes. Megalomaniacs come in all shapes and sizes.
Holly, I appreciate you and your mathematical mind. I have been sickened that people around the world are not immediately condemning the wholesale murder of innocents-that they even go further into hellish rants that these murders are, in fact, justified. Morality has been losing ground for a long time but the depths to which we “civilized” peoples have sunk is appalling.
The two points that I feel one must come to a conclusion on in regards to all of this.
1) The Pro-Hamas coverage from the West will continue to push Israel towards feeling that they lose nothing by simply annihilating Gaza outright regardless of losses among the civilians as it will change nothing in regards to what is happening to Israel, it's people, or its international image that has not already happened to them.
2) As you said, "when people tell you they are going to do something, believe them". When ever anyone brings up decolonization after this we can safely come to the conclusion that they are fine with the murder, rape, torture, and suffering of innocent civilians who happen to share traits with the people they believe have "oppressed them" and that their ideology gives them carte blanche to claim that anyone is "oppressing" them regardless of any actual facts in the situation. They are not peaceful, they are not trying to come to some compromise with other groups. They are racial/ideological supremacists who have simply not gotten access to the levers of power, and their rhetoric and choices now show why they should NEVER be allowed access to them.
Apparently, human societies, including those claiming to be "civilized," are susceptible to irrational mass-psychotic mind viruses which then inevitably and (unfortunately) understandably result in some horrific tragedy or tragedies.
Thank you so much for the insight and the courage to call out the Western world's current dangerous mental pandemic - identity politics and intersectionality. If we're lucky, the left's response to this trajedy (and people like you calling them out) will shock many people into waking up and realizing that this is seriously dangerous shit.
Oct 16, 2023·edited Oct 16, 2023Liked by Holly MathNerd
In this situation, I'd be shooting the guy with the babies strapped to him. My family comes first, and this guy is going to destroy them. No game theory needed. Bullies only understand one thing. And he's raising an army of them.
This isn't some justification of Israel, or Hamas or anything like that. Just saying what I'd do in this hypothetical situation.
Having grown up in Ireland, I understand terrorism to some extent. When a government does something bad to scare people into surrender or submission, it's never terrorism. Sending paratroopers to shoot into a civil rights protest and shooting 26 people, 14 of which died and burning Catholics out of their homes, and only allowing people with property to vote in elections, these were all things that happened in Northern Ireland BEFORE there was any significant terrorism. In a heavily gerrymandered democracy.
My wife is not Irish, and she comes from a Northern European democracy which would be seen as "progressive" by the US where the government is on your side for the most part with a big social safety net. She was baffled by my distrust of government and authority, it was alien to her.
In her country if you are a racial minority, the government most definitely isn't on your side, I even felt it as a white employed English speaking Irish guy with a university education - I had a university educated friend from Togo - obviously black - who had UN refugee status who emigrated to the US from there because he was arrested on a Sunday for rape (or at least he thinks so, they never actually charged him, just tore up his passport and locked him in a cell for 3 days) and only the woman in question definitively stated it wasn't him - after the cop said "are you sure, they all look the same". Only then did they release him. This guy considered the US a paradise of equality by comparison.
It's only terrorism if a non government body does it. Generally terrorists in this type of situation are seeing horrible things happening to them and their people every day.
Makes me wonder what game theory Hamas were using - because it certainly lost them a lot of support with rational thinking people. I guess that's probably a small percentage but still ...
Not sure what the point of all this is, only to say these things are far more complicated than they seem, so I guess the same point Holly was making in a far more elegant and coherent way.
I suspect Hamas's game theory was: "We hate the Jews, and by their own rules the West has to stick up for us now, because we're poor and brown. So we'll force them to respond and blast the pictures of our dead children far and wide, which will make the West finally see the Jews the way we do, and then we can get their support to launch a Final Solution."
That sounds nuts to any rational person, but then again there aren't that many of those around it seems! Can't wait to see Sam Harris's take on this ...
Well said. I agree 1000%
"Given that their neighbors—and, to my personal shame as an American, quite a lot of Americans—have already shown that they are burning up with anti-Semitic hatred, I really don’t see why Israel should consider world response in its calculus." I agree. They really shouldn't care what we think. It's time for some people to stop caring what others think and stand up for themselves, enforce boundaries. But it's an awful situation, and I am thankful I'm not making those horrible decisions.
I won’t put a like on it, because it’s an unpleasant topic. I read it because I wanted to know if your thinking was opposite what you’ve expressed. Thankfully it’s not.
I consider myself honest and reasonably principled, but like the hypothetical scenario where my kid decides he doesn’t want to drive, I would not have as much trouble as you describe. The thief is gone on his first entry. The rest works itself out.
I don’t think it’s the best analogy either, but I get your point.
Here’s a thought: It is true that by using human shields, even placing a headquarters beneath a hospital, the attackers are depending on the religious and principled restraint of Israelis to protect themselves. It is only necessary to choose targets more carefully.
Wouldn’t it be a good thing if all of humankind was better at handling their emotions? As in, able to dismiss hatred.
Thank you for this wonderful piece of sanity! As I wrote to Josh Slocum about his video this week, I am Jewish. I am the aging child r of Holocaust survivors who are, thankfully, all passed away; the last one was my aunt, my mother’s younger sister, who died at 95 in 2022. It is a blessing they are not around to feel the anguish of what could be another Holocaust. I, myself, am an unapologetic Zionist and this past week has been a nightmare for me and my Israeli friends. I’m also an American, born and bred, who has always revered the principles on which our nation was built. To be blunt, the fight in Israel is for the future of the Jewish people everywhere AND it is a battle for the future of the West, for the values that have enabled America to build the freest, most multi-ethnic, and prosperous nation that has ever existed and which is deeply in danger now. So thank you for understanding and speaking out. My support of your substack is assured!
Well thought out piece. I agree completely. At first, I wasn't sure where you were going with the psycho neighbor analogy, but it was brilliant. Terrorists have used our morality against us this way for decades. There is a film starring Samuel L. Jackson called Rules of Engagement (2000) that turns their tactics into a thriller. We've known this for years in the West, and somehow we are forgetting that they are manipulating the game now? Why would that be? The answer is clear: Hamasaki is not like us, and they revel in it. They hate the Jews and us THAT much. It doesn't stop with the genocide of Jews. They are coming for us, too. This is Maoism 2.0 - Marxist hate on steroids.
If this tactic is allowed to succeed, not just to garner the world's sympathy and support, then they will try very hard to set up a new caliphate. Why would they not?
My understanding is that many of the Islamist terror organizations are part of a violent cult subset that views forming a caliphate as a mandate.
This matches my own understanding of their theology. I thought about mentioning it, but I didn't need it for my argument and also didn't want to invite a bunch of "Akchually....true Islam is peaceful" responses. 😬
Yeah, that's why I was specific when I said they are a cult subset. There are different sects with varying degrees of peaceful sentiment, but none are strict pacifists, and all share an ancient anti-Semitism that gives them a certain kinship with the Nazis. They were overt allies of the Axis in WW2.
Incredibly well-written and reasoned. Your analogies are perfect. I don't know how you do it, but you do it so well.
My four closest friends are all so insanely smart that it's a little terrifying, so I am constantly surrounded by intellectual rigor. I pray it rubs off on me.
I just shared this essay. My comment with the share is "Holly is one of the smartest nobody’s I’ve ever come across. Read this. It’s long. Stick it out. You won’t regret it."
Consider yourself rubbed to a fine intellectual shine.
Bet you can't wait to see the comments :)
Holly, I can't help but to share your rage about this situation and about the idiots who parrot the "yeah but Israel" chant. They are disingenuous at best but more likely damaging to any prospect of peace. Thanks for bringing home the message on intersectionality as it relates to why we (as a country) tolerate certain types of extremism. I think that your subscribers might increase... and the ones you lose don't deserve you anyway.
Exactly!
Holly. This was an excellent piece. I have to say though, I'm starting to expect this level of analysis from you.😁
What, no one's yet written an interminable rambling comment? Fine, I'll bite lol.
Like most things what I find troublesome is not the issue of itself but behavior and observations of human nature and social dynamics. I think most people would have no problem with your logic, it's just the amount of reductionism at the outset was disturbing. You display more nuance than a lot of people did, even as you arrive at a pragmatic conclusion (not to be confused with solution). A prominent example is Joel Pollak, editor in chief (or something) of Breitbart. The other Saturday he proclaimed that he was breaking Shabbat to say that Gaza should be leveled. It wasn't just anon accounts saying this. Only after a few days did I notice the use of "Hamas" instead of "Palestinians", and the following Saturday (yesterday) Pollak apologized for his indiscriminate sentiments, while maintaining his overall stance. In retrospect I feel foolish for expecting more from people. Tribalism is the default, no matter how proud westerners are of the west. Of course people were going to respond this way. (Despite my disdain for humanity I'm still an idealist it seems.)
It wasn't the arguments themselves "let's not conflate the citizens with the leaders" but the callousness of "they voted for it." I guarantee that almost everyone just recently learned, as I did, that about half (45-50%) of Palestinians are children and the last Palestinian election was 17 years ago, making half the population not even alive when it happened. You don't have to opine one way or another to be bothered by "fuck around and find out, gametes and embryos!" I'm too stupid to have an opinion one way or another but I will always reject the utterance of a non-prevailing opinion (it doesn't even have to be an opinion) as anathema. The same exact thing happened with Ukraine. If someone dispassionately explained events in the past that catalyzed current events you were called a Putin apologist. If you explain the very long history of the middle east that catalyzed these events you're called a terrorist sympathizer, even a Holocaust denier if they're feeling generous. (As if wokeness hasn't already largely nullified the meaning of such labels.)
I'm an American first and foremost, so I have no opinion on the outcome. Also I am mixed race, and unburdened by white western cultural guilt, which heavily informs opinion, regardless of which ethnicity people support in this conflict. I never felt kinship with any of my ethnicities, which can be lonely, but it also helps inoculate me against identitarian thinking. My personal reactance comes not from empathy but the demonization of caution or skepticism. One doesn't even need to go back far in history, as "stay home, save lives" in 2020 had echoes of Bush 43-era "you're either with us or with the terrorists." It happened with those skeptical of virus and lockdown in March 2020, it happened with Ukraine, and last week was the anniversary of the "babies in incubators" testimony that galvanized support for Bush 41's Iraq invasion (which was going to happen anyway). To paraphrase Charlton Heston my skepticism (of EVERYONE, especially during wartime) will be pried from my cold dead hands. No shame or stigma will move me.
While you made no claims that intersectionality is the only thing causing this one large piece missing from this is immigration. Two observations blew my mind. When I saw people in shock about pro-Hamas protests, "how could this happen in western liberal societies???" I was dumbfounded. Liberal pluralism, duh. Around this time Pollak himself suggested Palestinian refugees be allowed temporary asylum in the US. What?? Those people don't share our values, but let them in? My bias is that those gung-ho for immigration are rooted entirely in emotion and people wondering how we got here aren't exactly dispelling that bias. No, I don't want the people whom allies of the US are at war with to come here. This is not based solely on current events but on philosophy.
One of the many, many things I've thought about since you wrote your pieces about the founding of the USA is how everyone crows about the USA being special for being the only nation in history founded on ideals. So why let just anyone in, if the key to our uniqueness is this set of very explicit and singular values? "What, do you hate brown people?" or "everyone deserves a better life" are not sufficient justifications. If a destitute hardcore communist shows up at the immigration office I would have no qualms whatsoever denying them, the same way I'd turn away refugees from the country our allies just bombed. Letting in someone whose values are antithetical to yours is short-sighted, if not suicidal. I don't know how you screen for this but given that it is our express values that set us apart from every other nation in human history this has to be accounted for. American values are special and worth protecting or they aren't.
(re: anarchism it's not just no centralized authority, but devolution of authority. There wouldn't be no security agencies, there would be multiple rather than one. Privatization would have the same issues as we currently have, but it's better than a monopoly, in which you have no recourse. From what I can tell anarchists explicitly admit that it would not be a utopia (unlike most ideologies- anarchism is not even an ideology) there is only dealing with problems as they come. In addition to privatization of security other people besides you would notice the asshole neighbor. He wouldn't be running amok for that long. Anyway, I'm not an anarchist nor am I not here to defend it. I'm just aware of the arguments and characterizations for and against. This is my limited understanding)
While not a libertarian nor anarchist (I refuse to label myself) I believe all states are the problem. If you're a government you deserve scrutiny, regardless of your ethnic status. I vehemently reject the idea of protected classes. Megalomaniacs come in all shapes and sizes.
Holly, I appreciate you and your mathematical mind. I have been sickened that people around the world are not immediately condemning the wholesale murder of innocents-that they even go further into hellish rants that these murders are, in fact, justified. Morality has been losing ground for a long time but the depths to which we “civilized” peoples have sunk is appalling.
The two points that I feel one must come to a conclusion on in regards to all of this.
1) The Pro-Hamas coverage from the West will continue to push Israel towards feeling that they lose nothing by simply annihilating Gaza outright regardless of losses among the civilians as it will change nothing in regards to what is happening to Israel, it's people, or its international image that has not already happened to them.
2) As you said, "when people tell you they are going to do something, believe them". When ever anyone brings up decolonization after this we can safely come to the conclusion that they are fine with the murder, rape, torture, and suffering of innocent civilians who happen to share traits with the people they believe have "oppressed them" and that their ideology gives them carte blanche to claim that anyone is "oppressing" them regardless of any actual facts in the situation. They are not peaceful, they are not trying to come to some compromise with other groups. They are racial/ideological supremacists who have simply not gotten access to the levers of power, and their rhetoric and choices now show why they should NEVER be allowed access to them.
Apparently, human societies, including those claiming to be "civilized," are susceptible to irrational mass-psychotic mind viruses which then inevitably and (unfortunately) understandably result in some horrific tragedy or tragedies.
Thank you so much for the insight and the courage to call out the Western world's current dangerous mental pandemic - identity politics and intersectionality. If we're lucky, the left's response to this trajedy (and people like you calling them out) will shock many people into waking up and realizing that this is seriously dangerous shit.
Well said, Holly.
It's a great, clear, thoughtful piece, much better than 99% of analysis I've read online. Thank you.
In this situation, I'd be shooting the guy with the babies strapped to him. My family comes first, and this guy is going to destroy them. No game theory needed. Bullies only understand one thing. And he's raising an army of them.
This isn't some justification of Israel, or Hamas or anything like that. Just saying what I'd do in this hypothetical situation.
Having grown up in Ireland, I understand terrorism to some extent. When a government does something bad to scare people into surrender or submission, it's never terrorism. Sending paratroopers to shoot into a civil rights protest and shooting 26 people, 14 of which died and burning Catholics out of their homes, and only allowing people with property to vote in elections, these were all things that happened in Northern Ireland BEFORE there was any significant terrorism. In a heavily gerrymandered democracy.
My wife is not Irish, and she comes from a Northern European democracy which would be seen as "progressive" by the US where the government is on your side for the most part with a big social safety net. She was baffled by my distrust of government and authority, it was alien to her.
In her country if you are a racial minority, the government most definitely isn't on your side, I even felt it as a white employed English speaking Irish guy with a university education - I had a university educated friend from Togo - obviously black - who had UN refugee status who emigrated to the US from there because he was arrested on a Sunday for rape (or at least he thinks so, they never actually charged him, just tore up his passport and locked him in a cell for 3 days) and only the woman in question definitively stated it wasn't him - after the cop said "are you sure, they all look the same". Only then did they release him. This guy considered the US a paradise of equality by comparison.
It's only terrorism if a non government body does it. Generally terrorists in this type of situation are seeing horrible things happening to them and their people every day.
Makes me wonder what game theory Hamas were using - because it certainly lost them a lot of support with rational thinking people. I guess that's probably a small percentage but still ...
Not sure what the point of all this is, only to say these things are far more complicated than they seem, so I guess the same point Holly was making in a far more elegant and coherent way.
I suspect Hamas's game theory was: "We hate the Jews, and by their own rules the West has to stick up for us now, because we're poor and brown. So we'll force them to respond and blast the pictures of our dead children far and wide, which will make the West finally see the Jews the way we do, and then we can get their support to launch a Final Solution."
That sounds nuts to any rational person, but then again there aren't that many of those around it seems! Can't wait to see Sam Harris's take on this ...