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Deep Zionism

scottaaronson.blog

61–70 of 112 posts

Re: Deep Zionism

#61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is an interesting statistic, but India is a subcontinent while Gaza is one marathon long. I would anticipate need to travel to vary inversely with area. Wouldn't it be queer if, at most, 6% of Manhattanites stepped foot off the island each year?

Two clarifications. First, I’m talking about exits, not unique people. Pre-war Gaza logged ~500k documented exits/year (via Israel and Egypt) out of ~2 M residents; India logged ~21.6 M departures out of ~1.4 B. Both are trip counts, so repeat travelers are included. Second, area is a red herring. Cross-border mobility is driven by policy, permits, visas, income, and border agency capacity—not square kilometers. Manh…

I think we disagree on a great many things and it probably will not be resolved through an accounting of facts or reasoned argument. I will mention that as far as 'red-herrings' go, the OP did not mention 10/7 when they called Gaza an open air prison.

Re: Deep Zionism

#62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Two clarifications. First, I’m talking about exits, not unique people. Pre-war Gaza logged ~500k documented exits/year (via Israel and Egypt) out of ~2 M residents; India logged ~21.6 M departures out of ~1.4 B. Both are trip counts, so repeat travelers are included. Second, area is a red herring. Cross-border mobility is driven by policy, permits, visas, income, and border agency capacity—not square kilometers. Manh…

I think we disagree on a great many things and it probably will not be resolved through an accounting of facts or reasoned argument. I will mention that as far as 'red-herrings' go, the OP did not mention 10/7 when they called Gaza an open air prison.

Indeed, I can see facts won't sway you, or most people in the pro-Palestine camp.

Also, I didn't mention the 10/7 attack either. The narrative that gaza is an open-air prison has existed for years, and it has been manifestly wrong for years; that hasn't stopped anyone from claiming it.

Re: Deep Zionism

#63

Israel has successfully conflated “being Jewish” with “embracing Israeli politics.” What a PR coup! I wonder, though, what they expect to happen when they lose their last remaining allies, as the world gapes in horror at the situation in Gaza. After all, most people have an intuitive sense that blasting a terrorist through their hostages is a morally indefensible action, unless you don’t really see the hostages as pe…

The domestic situation in the US is also a real issue. Israel gets unreasonably favorable political treatment compared to every single other country, it's a real issue from the isolationist right as well.

Re: Deep Zionism

#64
post #10
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did the Nazi homocaust of Jews seek to destroy all Jewish people, no. The UN has a working definition of genocide. The whole world, outside of the US (thanks AIPAC!) and maybe the UK is convinced that Israeli atrocities on Palestinians is clearly genocide. "Never Again!" - really, Israelis? It's only okay if it's you doing the killing?

> Did the Nazi homocaust of Jews seek to destroy all Jewish people, no. The entire goal of the holocaust was destroying all Jewish people (and many who weren't). This was exactly why this was dubbed "The final solution to the jewish problem". You might want to educate yourself a bit more on the subject > The whole world, outside of the US (thanks AIPAC!) and maybe the UK is convinced that Israeli atrocities on Palest…

[flagged]

Re: Deep Zionism

#65
post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Source: https://www.ochaopt.org/content/movement-and-out-gaza-2022 "In 2022, the Egyptian authorities allowed more exits of people through their border. The 144,899 exits recorded during the year are 44 per cent more than in 2021, representing the highest figure since 2014." That's 6.6% of the gaza population travelling out of gaza per year, higher than the percent of Indians who travel abroad each year. This statist…

> In 2022, more people were let out of Gaza; however, their movement remained the exception rather than the rule, with the vast majority of residents, over 2 million people, virtually ‘locked in.’ Nice selective quoting.

That's an editorial sentence; I was quoting a fact. The same fact appears in numerous other sources and gives lie to the open-air prison idea. Sorry you don't like that fact.

Re: Deep Zionism

#66
post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We were debating whether Gaza was an open-air prison. My claim is that it wasn't because people could get in and out. I have already acknowledged that the 6.6% figure refers to documented exits via the official Rafah crossing rather than indivudual people, and that this includes people who cross multiple times. You have not yet acknowledged the >400,000 crossings from Gaza to Israel, and you put in scare quotes the "…

You forgot the rest of the quote: “ While the tunnels prevented the complete collapse of Gaza's economy, they were unsustainable, informal, uncontrolled and unregulated by governments on either side of the border. They were closed by mid-2013.”

I did not forget the rest of the quote; I omitted it because it turns out that was wrong. Tunnels existed from Rafah to Egypt right up to 10/7. There are videos of Egyptian and israeli authorities destroying them post 10/7.

Re: Deep Zionism

#67
post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you for providing sources. I do find it interesting that the Washington Institute report concludes by saying that the Gaza Health Ministry's list of deaths is generally considered accurate, and that list currently includes more than 60,000 names. But maybe you're right! Maybe the very sources you're relying on are wrong, and only 50,000 or so Gazans have died. That still doesn't mean this isn't a genocide. The…

The sources I provided show that there are severe problems with the Gaza Health Ministry list. You may find particular sentences that show the top-line number is correct, and indeed that may be true. I provided those sources not to show that 60k is the wrong number of dead--a figure I myself used in my initial comment--but rather to show that the list itself has issues and that arguments can be made that it's an over…

> (1) why has Israel dropped millions of leaflets to warn of impending attacks?; (2) why has israel sent millions of text messages warning of impending attacks?;

These are the kinds of leaflets dropped by Israel: https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20250220-israel-drops-leaf... https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2023/10/israel-opt-is...

"The world map will not change if all the people of Gaza cease to exist. No one will feel for you, and no one will ask about you. You have been left alone to face your inevitable fate. Iran cannot even protect itself, let alone protect you, and you have seen with your own eyes what has happened. Neither America nor Europe care about Gaza in any way. Even your Arab countries, which are now our allies, provide us with money and weapons while sending you only shrouds.

"There is little time left — the game is almost over."

So, to your question, the primary purpose of these leaflets is to terrorize and threaten the population. The secondary purpose is to have hasbarists like yourself pretend that they are evidence of humanitarian magnanimity.

> (3) why has israel ordered evacuations of combat zones prior to attacking; (4) why has israel set up refugee camps/ safe zones;

"[Forensic Architecture] has documented a pattern in which civilians have been directed to move to certain areas by official evacuation orders, only for the Israeli military to attack those same areas shortly afterwards, either on the same day as the evacuation order, or the day after.

"The incidents documented here are representative, not exhaustive." - https://frames.forensic-architecture.org/gaza/updates/attack...

> (5) why has Israel supplied so much aid to a civilian population you claim it's trying to kill;

Even rhetorically this question makes no sense, considering that it is very well-documented that Israel has been and is actively preventing real humanitarian aid. The Israeli-sanctioned "aid" via the GHF is a "killing field" of desperate Palestinians: https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2025-06-27/ty-article-ma...

> (6) why has its genocide been so incompetent and long-lasting if it could accomplish its alleged genocidal goal in a week;

Because then there would be even fewer of those alongside you willing to defend the indefensible.

> (7) what % of those killed are terrorists?; (8) why is the civilian:combatant death ratio so low;

The postulate required for this pair of questions to not be self-defeating is to expand the meaning of "terrorist" to encompass, at the least, every male in Gaza. In other words, "Gaza deserves death. The 2.6 million terrorists in Gaza deserve death! … Men, women, and children – in every way possible, we must simply carry out a Holocaust on them – yes, read that again – H-O-L-O-C-A-U-S-T! For me, gas chambers. Train cars. And other cruel forms of death for these Nazis. Without fear, without hesitation – simply crush, eradicate, slaughter, flatten, dismantle, smash, shatter …. Gaza deserves death. Let there be a Holocaust in Gaza." - https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/jun/27/israel...

Re: Deep Zionism

#68
post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In 2022, more people were let out of Gaza; however, their movement remained the exception rather than the rule, with the vast majority of residents, over 2 million people, virtually ‘locked in.’ Nice selective quoting.

That's an editorial sentence; I was quoting a fact. The same fact appears in numerous other sources and gives lie to the open-air prison idea. Sorry you don't like that fact.

You keep insisting on that 6.6% figure, but you have yet to provide a single source that supports it. You made that calculation yourself, based on a statistic that you already admitted doesn't mean what you thought it meant, and doesn't correspond to the relevant statistic for India. Given how many times I've raised this issue to your attention, I would say you are now intentionally misleading people.

Re: Deep Zionism

#69
post #8

This post got flagged and hidden, but I vouched for it because I think it's more interesting than just another political take. It's a historical record of a brilliant academic (one who I once followed and respected) slowly being pushed into accepting, and then embracing, a genocide.

I was just reading through the discussion here because I was curious how people would respond to that post. Thanks for all your thoughtful, level-headed and incredibly patient replies!

Thank you for reading! If nothing else, it's been a very interesting lesson in the state of online media literacy.

Re: Deep Zionism

#70
post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A maritime blockade or a no-fly zones are still not an occupation, and if there is an actual state with all the apparatuses of a state including a standing army in said territory, that argument goes down the drain pretty fast

>are still not an occupation >if Please provide evidence for your conclusion that it’s not an occupation; My source was https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_occupation_of_the_Gaza... Full quote being: >The United Nations, international human rights organizations,[1] International Court of Justice, European Union, International Criminal Court, some of the international community and some legal academics and experts r…

Your comment talks about occupation in Gaza and then switches to Palestine, if you reread what I said above, I agree the west bank is mostly occupied (Area A isn't). What I am talking about is Gaza.

Your appeal to authority does not matter as this is a matter that was not never resolved in courts, and the reasons Israel has withdrawn in the first place was due to international support, which also included the western countries you mention.

Generally, Anyone who can read the definition of occupation in both international law and English knows it will be very hard to prove what went in Gaza previous to the war was occupation.

The fact that this, similar to other axioms in the conflict are considered truism while no one stops to thinks on whether they even make sense, is a good example of prejudices at play.

Another recent example, the UN having to redefine famine in order to declare famine in Gaza. Do you see the pattern?

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