Gift of Doubt: Israel-Palestine Edition

Why weigh in? I've got spooked voicing opinions about Israel-Palestine before and the clear diagnosis of how I walked into that conflict was probably an impressive level of ignorance.

Probably until recently, it was actually quite safe to discuss Israel-Palestine in polite society, if one bothered to discuss it at all, because my context has largely been Australia (Israel-Palestine never came up in my half-decade in Mexico, though like Australia I have friends certainly discussing it now.) and Australia is a wealthy secular nation of regional influence but is certainly very much a lackey on the Global Stage, a nation that is like an illiterate child at a restaurant restricted to asking for "same" or "yes/no" to whatever is done by/offered to us by either the US, the UK, China or EU. 

Probably most metropolitan residents know both Jewish and Muslim people, very likely have both as friends, but overwhelmingly most people we know and interact with are vague-culturally protestant people of European descent that care overwhelmingly about property prices and interest rates above all else.

This demographic basically flipped the switch last October or whatever, and many became somewhat passionate about the latest conflict. At which point, I should be very clear I don't pretend I know more about what's really going on than most of my friends who share my own demographics, and frequently, psychographics. I almost certainly know less about the present conflict. What I feel though, is that they are way more confident than I. 

So I'm going to try something that might be death as a reading experience - to try and translate spectrum street epistemology into a fucking blog post.

Here's how it works, and I'm going to bias the process to reflect my own bias: that it is more impressive to express doubt than certainty. So the "spectrum" is a 5-point confidence interval:

-2 strongly agree, -1 agree, 0 neither nor, 1 disagree, 2 strongly disagree. 

And I will endeavour to word all my claims such that to "strongly disagree" with the claim, expresses the highest level of doubt.

So I make no bones, my aim for the reading experience is to generate higher scores, which is to say, to bump people's confidence down.

I endeavour to do this, because after one dinner party argument about Israel-Palestine I found myself embattled by people who were way more confident in their assessment of the situation. As in: this topic is simultaneously intractable and straightforward. It hasn't repeated but nor has the conflict resolved, but if I had my time again, I'd probably propose street epistemology of some kind.

"I can explain the history of Israel-Palestine in such a way that no substantive/material evidence would contradict my explanation."

-2 SA, -1 A, 0 NN, 1 D, 2 SD.

"I can name the paramount leader (Prime Minister, Governor, President, Sheik, Sultan, Caliph, Imam etc.) of Palestine immediately prior to the establishment of Israel."

-2 SA, -1 A, 0 NN, 1 D, 2 SD.

"It's impossible to be racist and not know it."

-2 SA, -1 A, 0 NN, 1 D, 2 SD.

"It's impossible for me to be anti-Semitic (specifically bigoted toward Jews) and not know it."

-2 SA, -1 A, 0 NN, 1 D, 2 SD.

"I understand the history of the Crusades and could explain it to a stranger."

-2 SA, -1 A, 0 NN, 1 D, 2 SD.

"If I lived in the times of the Crusades, I could say I would definitely not be a Crusader (putting sex based discrimination etc. aside)"

-2 SA, -1 A, 0 NN, 1 D, 2 SD.

"The educated middle class are not targeted by, nor subject to, propaganda."

-2 SA, -1 A, 0 NN, 1 D, 2 SD.

"Intelligent educated people are never fooled by propaganda."

-2 SA, -1 A, 0 NN, 1 D, 2 SD.

"I would not be fooled by propaganda."

-2 SA, -1 A, 0 NN, 1 D, 2 SD.

"University students have never been on the wrong side of history."

-2 SA, -1 A, 0 NN, 1 D, 2 SD.

"All religions are basically, fundamentally the same, and the *contents* of scripture are of no real import."

-2 SA, -1 A, 0 NN, 1 D, 2 SD.

"I know Hamas would exchange a hostage for a Palestinian prisoner who was critical of Hamas."

-2 SA, -1 A, 0 NN, 1 D, 2 SD.

"I know what a state like Israel, can and should do about Hamas/Islamic militants to ensure the safety of its citizens, immigrant workers and tourists."

-2 SA, -1 A, 0 NN, 1 D, 2 SD.

"I know what 'Free Palestine' means, what it looks like and how it could be achieved."

-2 SA, -1 A, 0 NN, 1 D, 2 SD.

"Based on my history of defending unpopular positions in controversial issues when I see merit, or merely merit in heterodox debate, I'm confident I am not merely jumping on a band wagon regarding this issue."

-2 SA, -1 A, 0 NN, 1 D, 2 SD.

"My positions on Russia-Ukraine, Israel-Palestine I'm confident are consistent."

-2 SA, -1 A, 0 NN, 1 D, 2 SD.

"If Australia attacked a Chinese civilian population in retaliation to Chinese encroachment (eg. tariffs or trade bans causing economic damages, or visa requirements preventing ease of travel to China, or restrictions on ownership for ventures in China, or punitive actions taken against Australian officials being critical of or demanding answers from Chinese counterparts.) It would be unreasonable/unethical for Australia to hold our own militants primarily responsible for a predictable retaliation."

-2 SA, -1 A, 0 NN, 1 D, 2 SD.

"I'm confident that if Hamas leadership were to say 'we are a nation of martyrs' it is meant in the same sense, and has the same moral value as Winston Churchill's 'we shall fight them on beaches...'"

-2 SA, -1 A, 0 NN, 1 D, 2 SD.

"I know how the inhabitants of the West Bank feel about Hamas, I know Hamas policies, I know what ceasefire agreements were in place prior to the attacks in October last year etc."

-2 SA, -1 A, 0 NN, 1 D, 2 SD.

"Hamas could not have predicted the IDF and Netanyahu response to their attack and could reasonably have anticipated that the attack would result in freedom for Palestine."

-2 SA, -1 A, 0 NN, 1 D, 2 SD.

"The Netanyahu government and IDF could not have predicted the international public response to their retaliation."

-2 SA, -1 A, 0 NN, 1 D, 2 SD.

"I'm confident that without a ground invasion, the Israeli hostages could have been returned safe and alive."

-2 SA, -1 A, 0 NN, 1 D, 2 SD.

"The Netanyahu government and IDF are right to act with impunity to global public sentiment."

-2 SA, -1 A, 0 NN, 1 D, 2 SD.

"Based on my history of defending principle even at the risk of being unpopular or disliked, I am confident I would not have been a Crusader during the Crusades, a Nazi in Nazi Germany, a Montagnard in the French Revolution, a Red Guard in Mao's Cultural Revolution etc."

-2 SA, -1 A, 0 NN, 1 D, 2 SD.

"The market is never wrong."

-2 SA, -1 A, 0 NN, 1 D, 2 SD.

"The best policy for a secure future of Israel, is to rigorously defend against public debate, public criticism, UN resolutions and US censure for Israeli settlements in the West Bank and Gaza Strip etc. OR manufacture the Overton Window to exclude criticism of Israel, from both sober rational people and bigoted conspiracy theorists alike."

-2 SA, -1 A, 0 NN, 1 D, 2 SD.

"I'm confident that Palestine has not had access to peaceful forms of resistance for at least 5...10...20...30...years etc."

-2 SA, -1 A, 0 NN, 1 D, 2 SD.

"I know what Israel should have done about the second intifada (including suicide bombings on buses etc.)"

-2 SA, -1 A, 0 NN, 1 D, 2 SD.

"I understand the details of the two state proposal famously rejected in the 2000 Camp David summit."

-2 SA, -1 A, 0 NN, 1 D, 2 SD.

"I understand what Mao's Red Guard are, and their role in China's Cultural Revolution."

-2 SA, -1 A, 0 NN, 1 D, 2 SD.

"I've never been wrong about something."

-2 SA, -1 A, 0 NN, 1 D, 2 SD.

"Intuitions are never wrong."

-2 SA, -1 A, 0 NN, 1 D, 2 SD.

"I've never explored an intractable problem that wasn't simple for society to solve."

-2 SA, -1 A, 0 NN, 1 D, 2 SD.

"I could explain Fascism as a political theory/movement to a 12 year old without making reference to Hitler, Nazis or Swastikas (which is to say, I could define fascism as a set of ideas without merely providing an example of it.)"

-2 SA, -1 A, 0 NN, 1 D, 2 SD.

"The market is never wrong."

-2 SA, -1 A, 0 NN, 1 D, 2 SD.

"Public sentiment has never been on the wrong side of history."

-2 SA, -1 A, 0 NN, 1 D, 2 SD.

I scored 47, pretty high, but not the maximum in terms of epistemic humility. I could go on and on, but hopefully some of those gave you some pause, shrivelled your big swinging dick a little.

Now as to what I think about the conflict, one could guess that I mostly don't know. 

I certainly don't have the confidence to go out and protest, specifically to protest my own diplomatic core's responses. It's a case where I would reasonably expect DEFAT to have better intel than I do, via regular-arse-media reports, I'm not very interested in.

Most importantly, I don't know what one does about Hamas, and I would expect an answer, or a clear declaration that their attack on October 7th or whenever, was wrong. To me, even discounting the most salacious details, it seems pretty clear cut that such an attack is intolerable. 

I have no idea what one does about that. This isn't a crazed shooter situation, but like a quasi-municipal government. For example, I do not think the civilians of the Palestinian West Bank are capable of giving up Hamas to the IDF nor safely delivering the hostages. 

Now, I can have more confident positions on say Benjamin Netenyahu, I would prefer him, had he taken responsibility and resigned, even if any other Isreali replacement leader prosecuted the response and rescue operations in the exact same matter. It is also my opinion that at some level, Isreal suffers from a unique antipathy that doesn't apply to other nations that have been attacked, most prominantly Ukraine. 

Furthermore, I have no real interest in "who started it" timelines because one can probably guess, it goes back to at least the crusades if it is strictly about who among Abrahamic religions started it. Near as I can guesstimate, had I been around when the formation of Israel was debated, I probably would have opposed the establishment of a Jewish state, I guess I would have thought of it as fraught from the get-go. Alas, Israel was established as a state decades before I was born, it exists, that is what has to be considered. I am not one for saying "oh gee, this was a mistake, let's close the project and rediasporise the citizens of Isreal!" 

The modern state of North Korea can be considered a hostage situation. There was a point in history, where the US possibly at great expense could have safely ended North Korea, leaving the entire peninsula as what today economically, culturally and politically is some version of South Korea. Removing North Korea now would be very costly, by magnitudes greater than removing it would have cost in the 1960s, for one thing, now powers like the US have to take powers like China seriously.

It's possible that on the scale of Isreal-Palestine, as expensive as it might seem to definitively remove Hamas the militant entity, it would be way more costly in the future. Furthermore, based on the global response to Hamas' attack in October last year, it is understandable that Israel could have no confidence that the next attack might actually solicit sympathy for Israel and some notion that Hamas had finally gone too far.

Yes, Palestinians are dying. So too are Ukrainians, Belizians, Columbians, Sudanese, Uyghurs, Mexicans, El Salvadorans, Guatemalans etc. etc. I need some reason to compel me to treat this news story differently, and that reason can't be because you hate Jews.

Were Taiwan to launch a hairbrained invasion of the Chinese mainland tomorrow, including tactics of raping and pillaging, and China responded by saying "that's it." I would expect pacific powers like the US, Japan and Australia to back Taiwan for entirely pragmatic reasons, rather than moral ones. That's the level I expect hypocrisy at. For Joe Bloggs on the street however, I would expect people to clue in that such an attack would be reckless and suicidal, and that Taiwan's leadership should surrender themselves to protect civilian lives from a very predictable retaliation.

On that front, I can throw down a non-arbitrary line on who started this conflict - unambiguously Hamas. It can backdate to the last ceasefire to be in effect prior to the October 7th attack, though I'm not entirely sure what would have been in effect given my impression that rockets are launched from the West Bank into Israel, sporadically.

Which probably sums it up nicely, in terms of my position - my position is I need a proposal as to what to do about Hamas, because the solution can't be "leave Hamas be." at the moment I'm left with the impression that Hamas are the kind of actor that are happy for other's to die in their place. They do not appear to have, "skin in the game."