After learning some more about the topic, it now seems to me that the word “untrustworthy” in my comment above is a severe understatement. Quoting from a Washington Post article (emphasis added):
The so-called “Dahiya Doctrine” took shape in the wake of the bruising 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon. [...]
The doctrine that emerged out of the conflict was most famously articulated by IDF commander Gadi Eisenkot. “We will wield disproportionate power against every village from which shots are fired on Israel, and cause immense damage and destruction. From our perspective, these are military bases,” he told an Israeli newspaper in 2008. “This isn’t a suggestion. This is a plan that has already been authorized.”
[...]
Around the same time, former Israeli colonel Gabriel Siboni wrote a report under the aegis of Tel Aviv University’s Institute for National Security Studies that argued the necessary response to militant provocations from Lebanon, Syria or Gaza were “disproportionate” strikes that aim only secondarily to hit the enemy’s capacity to launch rockets or other attacks. Rather, the goal should be to inflict lasting damage, no matter the civilian consequences, as a future deterrent.
“With an outbreak of hostilities, the IDF will need to act immediately, decisively, and with force that is disproportionate to the enemy’s actions and the threat it poses,” he wrote. “Such a response aims at inflicting damage and meting out punishment to an extent that will demand long and expensive reconstruction processes.”
The doctrine appeared to be in operation during a round of hostilities between Hamas in Gaza and Israel at the end of 2008 and beginning of 2009. A U.N.-commissioned report regarding that conflict, which saw the deaths of more than 1,400 Palestinians and Israelis, determined that Israel’s campaign was “a deliberately disproportionate attack designed to punish, humiliate and terrorize a civilian population, radically diminish its local economic capacity both to work and to provide for itself, and to force upon it an ever increasing sense of dependency and vulnerability.”
Ofer, I’m an Israeli and a leftist perhaps as much as you are. Perhaps not, since I think the war is a necessary evil (though at the same time think some of the acts taken by Israel in it are unnecessary and horrific). Point is, I wouldn’t be surprised to discover you’re right. But I don’t understand what this all has to do with anything in Ezra’s post.
Not Ofer but I think he laid it out pretty clearly:
The author mentioned they do not want the comments to be “a discussion of the war per se” and yet the post contains multiple contentious pro-Israel propaganda talking points, and includes arguments that a cease-fire is net-negative. Therefore it seems to me legitimate to mention here the following.
I feel similarly to Ofer—this post has many interesting personal reflections, which I’m glad the author shared. At the same time, it seemed like there were several pro-Israel comments that feel similar to the rhetoric used to justify the killing of large numbers of civilians in Gaza (as a reminder for readers, roughly 17,000 Palestinians have been killed, with 70% of them being women or children under 18, relative to approx. 1,150 in Israel)
Some examples of these comments:
But now I also think much more about good and evil, and if stopping evil can justify many lives lost (if yes, how many? How do you even start to answer that?).
There’s at least one potential scenario that comes to mind in which protests end up being net negative in the long run. If global protests cause an early long term ceasefire, in the short term, fighting will stop, and lives will be saved. However, terror groups all over the world will learn that if they embed themselves within a civilian population, take hostages and use human shields, Western public opinion will protect them from a military response for even the most barbaric of attacks. In the long run, the chance of more frequent and more vicous attacks, and the use of human shields, will go up significantly, leading to even higher death tolls.
Without getting into it too much, the second comment seems to totally overlook the fact that Israel has been illegally encroaching on Palestinian land,forcing people out of their homes and restricting access to basic rights like food and water for the past few decades. In my view, it’s the allowance of this by the international community which has been net negative, and led to the ongoing occupation of Palestine and the war we currently have.
Agreed! In that case, why not include both sides of the story to paint a fair picture, given the author thought it was fine to include more political / less-neutral statements?
Because the post is about OP’s personal feelings as they relate to EA thinking, and not about what the right thing for Israel to do is, or what the resolution for the conflict is.
I disagree because at least one of the statements I quoted above is not “feelings” as you state, and they literally talk about what might be the downside of some political actions (e.g. closer to analysis on the conflict and potential resolutions).
I don’t agree with you, because I still think the post leaves much room for readers to come to different conclusions, and is rather (in that part) a demonstration of how popular thought misses important things.
I do however appreciate your effort to discuss with me and explain your view.
I’ve been reading your comments with great interest. Thank you! Do you maybe want to write a top-level post on the topic? Since it’s December (but also generally), I’d be quite interested in whether you can think of donation opportunities that are sufficiently leveraged to plausibly be competitive with (say) GiveWell top charities. Perhaps there are highly competent peace-building organizations in Israel. (I imagine few EAs will have the right expertise for direct work on this, and the ones who do will not benefit much from the post – but money is flexible.)
From what I’ve seen, peace building initiatives are more a matter of taste than proven effectiveness.
And I would wait until after the war to understand which orgs are able to effectively deliver aid to Gazans who have been affected, things will be clearer then. Now everything is complicated by the political / military situation.
I, very sadly, cannot recommend any org operating in this area. I’m a big fan of Standing Together, so maybe them, but I’m very pessimistic about the chances of the peace process. [Edit: I’d rather say I’m not optimistic enough. One of the major determiners of the future here will be foreign (and in particular, American) pressure—so maybe lobbying the US government to push for a peace accord would be good?]
If I were a non-Israeli person wanting to donate, I’d focus on aid for Gaza, but there too I cannot point to any organisation able to reliably move goods or funds into the hands of the citizens who need them.
The situation is dire and very hard to deal with, in both the short and long term. I’d be happy to have better recommendations.
Thanks! Yeah, I could imagine that particular aid programs beat GiveDirectly, but they’ll be even harder to find, be confident in, and make legible to others. But if someone has the right connections, then that’d be amazing too! (I’m mostly thinking of donors here whose bar is GiveDirectly and not (say) Rethink Priorities.)
I quite often listened to interviews with Noam Chomsky on the topic, and yeah, my takeaway was typically that the situation is too complex and intricate for me to try to understand it by just listening to a few hours of interviews… If I were a history and policy buff, that’d be different. :-/
After learning some more about the topic, it now seems to me that the word “untrustworthy” in my comment above is a severe understatement. Quoting from a Washington Post article (emphasis added):
Ofer, I’m an Israeli and a leftist perhaps as much as you are. Perhaps not, since I think the war is a necessary evil (though at the same time think some of the acts taken by Israel in it are unnecessary and horrific). Point is, I wouldn’t be surprised to discover you’re right. But I don’t understand what this all has to do with anything in Ezra’s post.
Not Ofer but I think he laid it out pretty clearly:
I feel similarly to Ofer—this post has many interesting personal reflections, which I’m glad the author shared. At the same time, it seemed like there were several pro-Israel comments that feel similar to the rhetoric used to justify the killing of large numbers of civilians in Gaza (as a reminder for readers, roughly 17,000 Palestinians have been killed, with 70% of them being women or children under 18, relative to approx. 1,150 in Israel)
Some examples of these comments:
Without getting into it too much, the second comment seems to totally overlook the fact that Israel has been illegally encroaching on Palestinian land, forcing people out of their homes and restricting access to basic rights like food and water for the past few decades. In my view, it’s the allowance of this by the international community which has been net negative, and led to the ongoing occupation of Palestine and the war we currently have.
One of the things that I think EAs may be able to see better than others is that such claims are not mutually exclusive.
Agreed! In that case, why not include both sides of the story to paint a fair picture, given the author thought it was fine to include more political / less-neutral statements?
Because the post is about OP’s personal feelings as they relate to EA thinking, and not about what the right thing for Israel to do is, or what the resolution for the conflict is.
I disagree because at least one of the statements I quoted above is not “feelings” as you state, and they literally talk about what might be the downside of some political actions (e.g. closer to analysis on the conflict and potential resolutions).
I don’t agree with you, because I still think the post leaves much room for readers to come to different conclusions, and is rather (in that part) a demonstration of how popular thought misses important things.
I do however appreciate your effort to discuss with me and explain your view.
Thank you, I appreciate you engaging in a civil way too, as well as this comment!
I’ve been reading your comments with great interest. Thank you! Do you maybe want to write a top-level post on the topic? Since it’s December (but also generally), I’d be quite interested in whether you can think of donation opportunities that are sufficiently leveraged to plausibly be competitive with (say) GiveWell top charities. Perhaps there are highly competent peace-building organizations in Israel. (I imagine few EAs will have the right expertise for direct work on this, and the ones who do will not benefit much from the post – but money is flexible.)
From what I’ve seen, peace building initiatives are more a matter of taste than proven effectiveness.
And I would wait until after the war to understand which orgs are able to effectively deliver aid to Gazans who have been affected, things will be clearer then. Now everything is complicated by the political / military situation.
I, very sadly, cannot recommend any org operating in this area. I’m a big fan of Standing Together, so maybe them, but I’m very pessimistic about the chances of the peace process. [Edit: I’d rather say I’m not optimistic enough. One of the major determiners of the future here will be foreign (and in particular, American) pressure—so maybe lobbying the US government to push for a peace accord would be good?]
If I were a non-Israeli person wanting to donate, I’d focus on aid for Gaza, but there too I cannot point to any organisation able to reliably move goods or funds into the hands of the citizens who need them.
The situation is dire and very hard to deal with, in both the short and long term. I’d be happy to have better recommendations.
Thanks! Yeah, I could imagine that particular aid programs beat GiveDirectly, but they’ll be even harder to find, be confident in, and make legible to others. But if someone has the right connections, then that’d be amazing too! (I’m mostly thinking of donors here whose bar is GiveDirectly and not (say) Rethink Priorities.)
I quite often listened to interviews with Noam Chomsky on the topic, and yeah, my takeaway was typically that the situation is too complex and intricate for me to try to understand it by just listening to a few hours of interviews… If I were a history and policy buff, that’d be different. :-/