In Bill Maher’s monologue this week, he gets serious about the war, going back in history and showing how the ethnic constitution of countries change drastically over time, how colonization is pervasive, and how ethnic cleansing has affected the Jews more than any other people (see his enlightening chart at 2:25).
Those who are pro-Palestinian won’t like the last half, in which Maher asserts that Israel isn’t going anywhere, and has offered two-state solutions to Palestine several times—all rejected. Maher asserts, however, that such a solution is impossible because, “Wars end with negotiations, and what the media glosses over is ‘It’s hard to negotiate when the other side’s bargaining position is you all die and disappear.'” (He also shows a map where the “river” and the “sea” is.) Reprising the history of Arab attacks on Israel, he shows how they’ve all failed, asking the Arab states, “How’s that working for you?”
He winds up predicting again that Israel will survive this war, that the dreams of a caliphate are “imaginary”, and that some plans to move all the Jews out of Israel will mean “there’s gonna be some kvetching.” The ending, in which he shows what moving the Jews out of Israel would entail has some good humor in it.
This is not going to make Maher popular, at least with “progressives,” but I suppose he never was. And I’m not as sanguine as he is about the future of Israel (see, for example, this article). What I do know is that Israel is determined to wipe out Hamas, and that the best thing for everyone would be for Hamas to surrender, lay down its weapons, and release the hostages. That would at least end the killing, and then cooler heads can figure out what to do. Those who call for a cease fire should be calling for Hamas to surrender, and I don’t understand why they don’t ask for that.
The Youtube notes:
It may be a “magical time of year,” but what we all really need right now is a good dose of realism about Israel and Palestine.
h/t: Enrico
Some of you may want to also read this essay…
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/10/world/europe/colonialist-word-gaza-ukraine.html?smid=tw-share
What fascinates me is how there is now a kind of ahistoricity to “colonialism”, as if it were a 18th or 19th century European invention.
Also, has anyone read the very long and great essay that former NYTimes editor James Bennet wrote in the Economist? Wondering about your thoughts on it….Nikole Hannah-Jones tweeted out her acrid response to it.
https://www.economist.com/1843/2023/12/14/when-the-new-york-times-lost-its-way
The essay by Bennet is superb. Hope our host finds it interesting enough to start a discussion.
Bennet’s article is a gripping inside view on how Pravda, er, the NYT, abandoned journalism for opinion-mongering. Via selective reporting and deliberate distortions (as in its descriptions of Cotton’s editorial), NYT has become a propaganda outlet for the far Left. One can see how this internal culture leads to its coverage of Israel/Hamas. As a result, even the articles that it does properly have no credibility anymore.
As for NH-J, she has no grounds for complaint. Bennet was too kind to her project.
I got caught by that essay after the first two pages; I stopped reading it from the screen, and at this very moment I’m printing it out (after having eliminated the unnecessary pictures). Now looking forward to examples of good journalism.
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I was just reading the CNN website, and their headline was that a 27-year old female hostage “has died.” Has died? Really? Cancer, heart disease or what? She was undoubtedly killed, and likely after some unimaginable and repeated torments until her poor body was no longer considered usable by her captors. Screw CNN and their mealy-mouthed euphemisms.
That’s a great piece by Maher.
I’ll believe US progressives are serious about decolonisation when they leave the Americas.
Actually on the issue of Israel, Hamas, jihadism, and Islamism I find the positions of Bill Maher, Sam Harris, Douglas Murray, and Ben Shapiro absolutely spot-on and unassailable.
+1
The “you all die and disappear” position reminds me of the position of the zombies wanting to be let inside in the song Your Brains — “All we want to do is eat your brains. We’re not unreasonable; I mean, no one’s gonna eat your eyes.”
Maher implies, and rightly so, that history is the Beginning of Now, and is not to be blown off as irrelevant to the current middle eastern conflict
I spent four hours yesterday watching videos on the Palestine-Israel question. I ordered Carter’s and Anziska’s book to learn more. This is a nice historical overview of how both sides failed: https://www.vox.com/world-politics/2023/11/22/23971375/israel-palestine-peace-talks-deal-timeline. This is a very well written piece on what occupation looks like, and it ain’t pretty: https://benjaminmoser.substack.com/p/a-trip-to-hebron I will as a freethinker keep my mind peeled to biases, prejudice and leftist groupthink among Pro-Palestinians, but as of now as a Jew myself I moved more steadily closer to recognizing the wrongness of this occupation by the children of the Holocaust, especially their extremists, and boy do we the people who did so much to the arts, sciences and intellectual foundations of Western thought have our extremists! We risk joining the other Muslim extremists that surround Israel, if we’re not already there. It was a mistake to create a Jewish state vs a pluralistic state for all that persecuted Jews could enter based on principles of democracy and tolerance (and I think the entitled religious beliefs of Muslims, Christians and Jews regarding Palestine play into this too)
I don’t want to respond to what I can only view as a Gish Gallop of mistaken viewpoints on Israel in your post … but I will respond to this one:
“It was a mistake to create a Jewish state vs a pluralistic state for all that persecuted Jews could enter based on principles of democracy and tolerance…”
Israel was never just a “Jewish state”. It is not a theocracy. It has no official religion. It is a homeland for Jews, but open to all.
It was established under International law that specified that the civil and religious rights of all peoples were to be maintained. And they were, which is why 20+% of Israeli citizens are Arabs. And Christianity thrives in Israel, especially compared to Arab and Muslim nations.
+1
Moser likes to claim modern Israel is a “shanda fir di goyim”, which to him is the worst sort of Jew.
But I think “Yevsektsiya” are worse.
> recognizing the wrongness of this occupation
I wonder a lot what other paths were considered in after 1967. I believe expelling the west bank’s population to Jordan was off the table, as 20 years changed what the world would accept? But did they seriously consider withdrawing & giving the land back to Jordan? Or half the land? Or giving it back with some condition that it stay demilitarised?
Occupation for months surely made sense in the war, but the idea of occupation for decades must have seemed worrying to many people at the time.
Great piece. As he said “Get serious!”
I take issue with Maher’s assertion that “wars end with negotiations”. Which wars are those? Just running through some major conflicts, The Second World War wasn’t ended by negotiations, but by the unconditional surrender of Germany and Japan, when faced with the alternative of total annihilation. The Kaiser’s Germany sued for peace knowing that it was facing defeat on the Western Front in 1918, and then had to swallow a humiliating peace settlement dictated by the Allies. The American Civil War ended with the crushing of the Confederacy by Grant and Sherman’s armies. American involvement in Vietnam was indeed ended by negotiation, but once the US troops were gone the North then proceeded to invade and conquer the South. The Korean War hasn’t technically ended at all, and could flare up again at any time. As far as I remember, Iran and Iraq didn’t really come to a negotiated agreement in 1988, the war just petered out along the original territorial lines due to the exhaustion of both sides.
I think you could make a good case that major wars are far more often ended by the total defeat and surrender of one side, than by any negotiations. What lessons this holds for the current conflict in Israel/Gaza is an open question.
Agree, wars from the 17th century to pre-1914 were mostly over competing imperial colonial claims or about national self-determination goals as empires began to totter. Other than the War of 1812, a faraway sideshow for an England preoccupied with Napoleon, negotiations didn’t so much end the fighting—those who were winning generally wanted to keep winning until the other side threw in the towel, thus to maximize their position—as determine who would control what or oppress whom. The resulting treaty between the belligerent powers ratified the new order long after the fighting had ended.
I doubt it is realistic to suggest that Hamas or the connected groups would surrender it what is for them a war of extinction, & if they wave white flags they will probably be shot at, recent evidence suggests. This seems a war of hate more than of territory. Each new act compounds that, so we continue in a spiral of violence that only draws in more people & makes for more hatred. I expect Hamas were counting on that, & so were provoking as much as possible, hoping for the reaction they got.