Skiluros

Whether it is Russia, Israel, North Korea, China, USA, Iran, or any other hostile nation is unimportant and they are all the same when boiled down. You can claim it is entrenched in Russians, but I wonder why you don’t make the same claim for the other countries that are just as entrenched in their beliefs. Modern Israelis and Palestinians included.

I don’t feel that I know enough about the other countries to make claims (excluding US where I have lived and travelled extensively, but I want to avoid bringing in US for now).

I would like to learn more about the polemical narratives of different Israeli factions. For example, while a strong majority of russians are clearly supportive of genocidal imperialism, they also claim that they don’t hate Ukrainians and it’s all because of NATO and Nazis and some other gibberish. And there is much more to it; imperialist revanchism, victimhood narratives, the notion of the “mysterious russian soul” etc.

I am just curious what the framing is in Israel and how local factions approach statements by Smotrich. For example, imperialist, great power revanchism doesn’t seem to be a relevant narrative for Israel.

I guess I should just start a post in r/Israel (assuming there is no equivalent on Lemmy). Although they might just immediately ban me.

I am not going to discuss US and I don’t speak Chinese/Korean, but I can comment on russia.

In russia, it’s not a “follow the leader” issue. Putin is symptom, not a cause. Russians in general believe themselves to be superior to the citizens of their former colonies and think they have the right to dominate them and destroy their culture. It is bottom up support for genocidal imperialism (there is wealth of research, both quantitative and qualitative, across multiple decades, using many different methodologies, that aligns with this statement).

I have seen many somewhat moderate pro-Israeli claim (online) that Netanyahu et al. aren’t representative of Israeli; is this a common view among moderate Israeli nationalists?

The russians “opposition” claims that it’s only putin, 1 or 2 oligarchs and Vanya the cow that are root of all problems. This is clearly bullshit, but that’s not what I am talking about. The argument has a measure of coherence in context of the aims and attitudes of the russian opposition (even if it is false).

What is the argument of moderate Israeli nationalists who don’t align with Netanyahu, Smotrich et al?

I guess I am trying to understand how Smotrich’s statement are framed by Israeli who maybe support a more aggressive posture towards Palestinians, but aren’t all in with Netanyahu and Smotrich. How do they expect observers to react towards to their country? Or do they explain this by claiming that everyone is antisemitic (be it in good faith or not)?

Smotrich also called for starving the Palestinians in Gaza.

Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich implies he believes that blocking humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip is “justified and moral” even if it causes 2 million civilians to die of hunger, adding however that the international community won’t allow this to happen.

“We are bringing in aid because there is no choice,” Smotrich says at a conference in Yad Binyamin hosted by the Israel Hayom outlet. “We can’t, in the current global reality, manage a war. Nobody will let us cause 2 million civilians to die of hunger even though it might be justified and moral until our hostages are returned. Humanitarian in exchange for humanitarian is morally justified, but what can we do? We live today in a certain reality, we need international legitimacy for this war.”

I honestly don’t understand how Israeli society expects people to interpret this sort of rhetoric and not come to the conclusion that Israel is a genocidal state.

Is there anyone pro-Israel reading this post that can provide an explanation? Is the argument that Smotrich and Netanyahu aren’t representative of Israeli society?

I almost feel like I am missing something. I am genuinely curious. I don’t understand what’s going on. Is this just bad faith arguments or do the Israeli supremacists not considering this to be genocide because of reasons?

Thank you to Howard G. Buffett!

I am glad that Howard Buffett has a sober understanding of how the russians operate. They will not engage in good faith unless you demonstrate that you are able and willing to fuck them up.