My protocol for dealing with sealions

“Sealion” is the term of art for a stranger who comes into your mentions on social media to grind an axe, named after this pointed, funny Wondermark comic about the pattern.

I have a personal protocol I try to follow when encountering sealions, which I will try to articulate here. This may be a living document, as I spot more principles behind how I do the dance.

Principles

DO IT FOR PEOPLE WATCHING

One cannot “win” a debate with a sealion, much less persuade them; trying is a pointless waste of time. The only reason to engage with sealions is for the benefit of people watching the exchange, either in a public forum or in a shared private forum for a community I care about.

I am vulnerable to temptation, but I keep an eye on the ball. Every move in every sealion encounter is an opportunity to inform someone who is new to the topic, or to show support for allies whom the sealion is attacking. Keeping in mind the object — revealing to observers what the sealion really is and really stands for, communicating to observers what your position really entails — improves everything about how the exchange with a sealion goes.

One can live a better life forgetting all the other lore in this post and just remembering this key point.

Defend good faith discussion

The sea lion in the Wondermark cartoon, with its talk about wanting a “civil discussion” et cetera, exemplifies how sealioning weaponizes a fake version of discussing disagreements in good faith. Sealioning is actually even worse than that; sealioning attacks our shared ability to have good faith discussion at all. Sealions teach people to distrust when someone exercises the norms of good faith discussion of hard topics, because people have mostly encountered those norms applied deceitfully by sealions and other wreckers. Sartre rightly recognized this bad faith in the guise of good faith as chipping away at the foundations of society.

One can fight this degradation of The Discourse by responding skillfully to sealions. I have cultivated the skill out of deep commitment to the norms of Karl Popper / Isaiah Berlin Liberalism, which you can find summarized at the bottom of this post. Exercising those norms in a sealion encounter demonstrates to observers both how these norms work and why these norms are good.

Since sealions only understand the norms of good faith as a trick they can use, exercising those norms properly paradoxically accelerates them revealing that they are actually speaking in bad faith, and when that reveal comes the contrast is stronger for observers.

Plus once in a blue moon, it turns out I misread someone as a sealion, and they actually were coming to me in good faith. This protocol has made me some good friends. Some of those friends hold positions I deeply oppose, but we both benefit from better understanding how the other side thinks, and from helping each other sharpen our understandings of what we ourselves think. And sometimes I even persuade them, at least a little, that my position has merit.

Be a good forum citizen

I try to not just rigourously obey the norms of the forum on which these encounters take place but also to always employ certain good forum behaviors which are often unarticulated as rules:

Contain the discussion

I try to keep the exchange with the sealion from annoying everyone in the forum.

If the sealion shows up to a discussion with multiple people involved, I leave them tagged into the first few rounds of my exchange with the sealion, but once it becomes a dialogue between me and the sealion, I un-tag others so it does not keep showing up for them.

I resist the temptation to to expand the exchange by replying to the sealion’s parallel replies to other people; if appropriate, I will reply with a link saying “we are already talking about this over here, if [third person] does want to join in.” It is good for people to see that they do not need to act to ensure that the sealion does not go un-challenged.

I will respond to a sealion subtweeting / vaguebooking elsewhere about their exchange with me, saying, “I presume that [sealion] is talking about this discussion [link], if folks are interested in what was actually said.” Again, this keeps the sealion from bullshitting unchallenged, while minimizing the spread.

This connects to specific move …

Resist forked threads

On any platform with threading, discussions with sealions can get bushy. Out of either incompetence or malice, sealions tend to create a lot of forks. This makes it hard for observers to see the whole discussion, and creates openings for sealions to grumble that you “ignored” a point they made.

I try hard to keep my comments on one main thread as much as I can. When something comes up on a fork, I respond to it on that main thread, then on the fork I link to where I replied to tie it off.

If the discussion escalates into a true social media shitstorm, this practice supports the most important anti-shitstorm principle: pursue clarity.

Respond in kind

Introduce as few things as possible

Sometimes one must introduce something important to the topic the sealion raised, but as much as possible I try to speak only to the points which the sealion introduces. Observers will eventually register that the sealion is trying to blitz the discussion with a flurry of points, moving the goalposts, and jerking the discussion around while I am responsing to them thoughtfully.

Among other advantages, this prepares for the common sealion tactic of asking, “Why are you so fixated on [point X]?” I can reply, “I did not introduce [point X], you did, then you refused to accept my response [argument Y] and move on. I keep responding to your counter-arguments against [argument Y] because [reason why Y is important].”

Stay at (or better, under) the sealion’s insult level

I try never to escalate an exchange of insults; if possible I try to keep my voice friendly even in the face of abusive language. I am not above calling a claim “stupid” or a position “cruel” if it is, but I try to reserve even these astringent descriptions for after the sealion has deployed them. Even when my feelings get the better of me a bit, or when I bare my teeth so I am not enabling bullying with my passive acceptance, I make a point of keeping my voice gentler than the sealion’s.

Most sealions start with the feigned polite reasonableness exemplified in the Wondermark cartoon, but few stick with it. As their insults grow increasingly mean-spirited, the disparity between their voice and mine shows observers what is really going on.

Seek the core disagreement

Digging out the fundamental question and seeking a shared understanding of it is Popper / Berlin Liberalism in action. Usually this boils down to a single important moral value plus a few points of fact. “You think evolutionary theory is morally degrading and grounded in a conspiracy of scientists; I don’t”. Moves like the Ideological Turing Test in pursuit of that ideal deliver a range of good results:

• If the sealion pushes back against moving toward more fundamental questions, it reveals the sealion’s disingenuousness to observers.
• Observers often get a clearer picture of why the sealion’s position is bad when I articulate its core.
• If the sealion embraces this move — which does sometimes happen — it produces a more substantive argument for observers to learn from.
• If reading the person as a sealion was a misdiagnosis of someone thoughtful, they will register what I am doing, embrace it, and we can get to a discussion I might actually learn from.

Moves

Ask crisp questions as much as possible

Sealions expect their targets to speak to them dismissively, and they have a pattern of using leading questions to shape the discussion. Asking them questions — and making them good, clarifying questions — disorients the sealion, helps make their question-asking pattern evident to observers, and accelerates the reveal of what their real agenda is. I like to use these patterns:

• When you say [thing they said], that seems to imply [ugly consequence] because [reason]. I assume that you do not mean that. Can you clarify?
• You seem to [always / never] [accept / reject] [thing]. Is that right? Or can you name an exception?

Grant points

I look for opportunities to show that I am not a stonewalling ideologue. So I look for opportunities to say stuff like:

• I agree with you about [Point X].
• I half agree with you about [Point X]: it is [right in Y way in Z situation], just [wrong about A in B way].
• Yeah [Case X] does exist. I am just focused on [Case Y] because [reasons].
• Thank you for catching the clumsiness of the way I put that. Allow me to clarify.
• FWIW, I am sure that [their Point X] is wrong but I respect it as a legitimate position that a reasonable person could hold.

This creates a useful contrast when I firmly hold the line. Observers notice that if I am willing to concede [Points X & Y] but not [Point Z], it means that [Point Z] is important … and that the sealion conceding nothing demonstrates that they are the stubborn blockhead.

Preëmpt sand traps

Most sealions are crackpots. They want to feel smart by making the people they harass respond by saying dumb things, (or things they think are dumb). They often try to produce that by offering familiar weak versions of their arguments, or teasing out motte-and-bailey bait.

When I see where the sealion is going, I jump directly to a crisp version of where they are going with patterns like:

• Am I right to think that you setting up a case for [where they are going]?
• I am familiar with [where they are going] and reject it for reasons I am sure you have heard before. If that is where you are going, what do we actually need to discuss?

Often observers find it clarifying to see a sealion’s frustration that they will not get the dance they wanted. I have a meme image I built to underline what is happening in those cases:

Apologize readily and well

I like to actively look for an opportunity to render an apology to a sealion. It demonstrates the difference between what a sealion does and genuinely speaking in good faith and extending charity. As I am human, I need not manufacture these opportunities; I will make a mistake.

We have a general No Apology Is Adequate problem. I try to stay ahead of that by explicitly apologizing and erring toward over-generously resting responsibility on my side. For example:

• I’m sorry I took you as saying [bad thing]. I saw it as implied in [thing they said] and obviously got it wrong. I want to avoid misrepresenting you. Would you correct my misreading by expanding on what you did mean there?
• I apologize. I see how you read [thing I said] as implying [bad thing X]. I was not clear. I should have been more careful to say explicitly how I [oppose / do not think] [bad thing X]. I should have said [refined version of thing I said] in the first place.
• I’m sorry I said something hurtful. I did not mean it to be, but it was my responsibility to be more careful.
• I’m sorry I did not respond on that particular point. I should have registered its importance. [Reply to the point.]

I enthusiastically refine these apologies in a second round if the sealion demands one on remotely reasonable terms.

This tends to soften sealions’ escalation to uglier rhetoric early in the exchange, but it does not stop it, because they want to get me to escalate to prove that they are right & reasonable; my willingness to apologize denies that to them.

It also draws a contrast between the times when I have an error to admit, or to offer as a generous interpretation of a bad turn, in comparison to points where I have nothing to apologize for and can point to how their accusation of my failing is disingenuous. That I will apologize and clarify underlines how I did nothing wrong when I do not.

Of course sealions tend to neither apologize nor accept apologies. Observers will register the difference.

Name when the sealion acts as predicted

Sealions often respond to any analysis of the implications of what they say as “unfair”, but when I give them enough rope they almost always say — or refuse to say — something which proves my point. When it happens, I point back to where I called it.

Announce when the sealion Blocks you

A Twitter post by the astringent Josh Ellis got me started on this post:

Lemme explain something that should be obvious: if you go after a stranger on social media and they block you, that’s not cowardice. They just don’t wanna talk to you.

When you go after someone, and they absolutely body you for it, and then you block them?

That’s cowardice.

It’s the equivalent of swinging on a total stranger at a bar and then running away crying when they tag you back. It’s a bitch move.

If you can’t leave people alone, don’t complain when they paddle your soft little ass for it. Cowboy up and take your whipping like an adult.

Sealions have a strong tendency to respond to the protocol I describe here by engaging for quite a while … and then they suddenly Block me. Observers need to know what happened, so I do a wrap-up saying:

I see that [sealion] Blocked me. They came into my mentions, I tried to address as many of their points as they could, and they ran off when it did not go their way.

I confess that this also feels good. It is as close to winning as these maddening exchanges can get ya.

Related

You can see examples of how I respond to sealions transcribed on my posts about crafting good policy for handling antisemitism and how the political right does not see people as equal.

I have posts about how I handle discussions in my space and social media shitstorms relevant in my space and elsewhere. That last includes a summary of principles relevant here:

I believe in the liberal-as-in-liberal-democracy approach to the Paradox Of Tolerance, which says that we need all six of these principles working together.

1. Honesty — always speak in good faith, telling the truth as well as one knows it, especially about oneʼs own ideas and intentions
2. Generosity — start from a presumption that everyone speaks & acts in good faith
3. Vigilance — always watch carefully for bad actors
4. Skepticism — demand strong evidence before accepting that someone is a bad actor
5. Transparency — publicly document evidence of bad actors
6. Safety — ruthlessly exclude demonstrated bad actors

Discussing how to counter antisemitism

The policy

A sharp-eyed Twitter acquaintance passed along a comment about how New York University has recently updated their nondiscrimination and anti-harassment (NDAH) policy to include this passage:

Using code words, like “Zionist,” does not eliminate the possibility that your speech violates the NDAH Policy. Speech and conduct that would violate the NDAH if targeting Jewish or Israeli people can also violate the NDAH if directed toward Zionists. For example, excluding Zionists from an open event, calling for the death of Zionists, applying a “no Zionist” litmus test for participation in any NYU activity, using or disseminating tropes, stereotypes, and conspiracies about Zionists (e.g., “Zionists control the media”), demanding a person who is or is perceived to be Jewish or Israeli to state a position on Israel or Zionism, minimizing or denying the Holocaust, or invoking Holocaust imagery or symbols to harass or discriminate.

My acquaintance was spooked “that ‘Zionist’ is specifically protected, in great detail, in a way that other identity categories are not”. I get it. But I think that the verbosity is necessary as a response to how hard these policy questions quickly become. I feel safe in presuming that the NYU NDAH policy is the work of many hands trying to thread the needle of how all at once:

1. Criticizing Zionism is not necessarily antisemitic
2. Many Israel apologists like to disingenuously claim that any criticism of Israel or Zionism is antisemitic
3. Vicious, deliberately antisemitic hate speech often veils itself by substituting “Zionists” for “Jews” so they can claim, “but I didn’t say anything about Jews!”
4. Sincerely misguided people with no intention of offering antisemitism often stumble into implicitly antisemitic misinterpretations of Zionism
5. It can be difficult to distinguish when antisemitism is in play unless one is very sophisticated

Most of that verbosity attempting to provide some guidance for identifying when anti-Zionism drifts into categories ^#3 and ^#4. But there is a nasty landmine in that policy statement which I feel certain came from someone in Category ^#2:

For many Jewish people, Zionism is a part of their Jewish identity.

What criticism of Zionism would not constitute a discriminatory attack on a Jewish individual who considers it “part of their Jewish identity”? I presume that whatever committee assembled this policy was diligently listening to disparate perspectives, and was not sophisticated enough to see how that clause was a ploy to lock out anything other than pro-Zionist voices. The committee got played.

The policy statement itself is an interesting example of the difficulty of navigating this territory. But I created this post to capture the even stronger example which surfaced in the Twitter discussion which followed, exemplifying my frustration when people who understand themselves as advocating the right and necessary cause of Palestinian liberation say facile, wrong things about ‘zionism’ and refuse to admit any need take care to avoid antisemitism in their movement.

The discussion

Here’s my original comment summarizing the point above:

I think the detail there is mostly appropriate, in distinguishing accurate use of “Zionist” from its applications as an antisemitic euphemism.

A sealion showed up to argue with me. I have a protocol for that.

I share our exchange not to call them out, but to point to the exchange as an example of how “you must not criticize me while I am opposing genocide” provides license to dismiss antisemitism.

why do you think that’s an error?

the point isn’t to accurately describe the world. no one was tricked.

Most of the quotation is trying to address the difference between allowing legitimate criticism of Zionism versus protecting against use of ‘zionist’ as an antisemitic dogwhistle. “Part of their Jewish identity” is an entirely different argument …

the rule exists to prevent students from criticizing zionism. it does not exist to prevent “antisemitic dogwhistle[s]”

there is not a legitimate purpose to the rule, at all, and anyone who acts like there is (for example: you) has chosen to defend zionism.

I do, in fact, defend Zionism, in part because antisemitic dogwhistles about ‘zionism’ are very real.

if you think that’s important when the zionist occupation is killing people every day, you’re nothing more than a useful moron

This is a red flag. It implies that anything is justified by outrage at wrongs committed by Israel. It implies that naming any fault in any action taken in the name of countering Israel’s wrongs is illegitimate. You could skip the rest of this post; it mostly consists of me trying to get this interlocutor to name any example of antisemtism offered under cover opposition to Israel’s wrongs they would object to, and them refusing to.

If you think that antisemitic entryism into the movement for Palestinian liberation is irrelevant because of the genocide in Gaza, you are nothing more than a useful moron

Note that I say early on, and repeatedly, that Israel’s attack on Gaza is genocidal to signal that no, I am very far from an Israel hardliner looking to suppress anti-Israel criticism.

i think it’s irrelevant to campus policing except as an excuse to crack heads of people who think death is bad, which is precisely what this is!

It sounds to me like you don’t want to protect legitimate criticism of Zionism, you want to protect antisemitic “criticism of ‘zionism’”

BBC | Columbia campus protester apologises for ‘kill Zionists’ comments

well, you’re in good company ’cause it sounds to me like you want to attack criticism of zionism, not “antisemitic” criticism of zionism.

I am advocating the removal of the element of the policy which rightly offends you, so you are either dangerously confused or clearly dangerous

the policy as a whole is what offends me. if you’re incapable of concluding that from my words, the fault is not mine.

policing the language of people who criticize genocide is not a job for campus cops.

NYU has no interest in people saying “end the genocide, kill the Jews” on their campus?

You should reconsider.

My interlocutor did not reply. I handed them unequivocal antisemitism which they could join me in opposing, and they did not pick it up.

Another tributary in the forking of the Twitter exchange:

I do, in fact, defend Zionism, in part because antisemitic dogwhistles about ‘zionism’ are very real.

I also criticize Zionism for a host of reasons

The “part of Jewish identity” argument in the policy is, as you say, a disingenuous blanket defense of Zionism against such criticisms

and yet here you have chosen to carry water for a policy that only exists to prevent criticism of zionists.

No, I oppose the inclusion of “Zionism is a part of their Jewish identity” in the policy

i mean that you’re arguing the policy to ban criticism of zionism has a legitimate role at all, notwithstanding your quibbles over the exact wording.

your defense functions to protect the killers by arguing for this policy, even if you claim not to want it to.

No.

I’m defending the part of the policy which is legitimate because it does not ban criticism of Zionism.

For example, per the quoted text of the policy, saying “Zionists control the media” is an antisemitic conspiracy theory.

buddy, i do not plan to read your blogspam. i have no desire to be exposed to anything at all that comes from your mind unbidden.

Interesting that this person actively prefers the limited medium of Twitter to the opportunities for clarity in an essay.

That is the end of that fork. Backing up a step to catch another tributary:

Most of the quotation [from the NDAH policy] is trying to address the difference between allowing legitimate criticism of Zionism versus protecting against use of ‘zionist’ as an antisemitic dogwhistle.

“Part of their Jewish identity” is an entirely different argument. The “part” analysis implies a need to prevent any criticism of Zionism because those criticisms fault Jews for characteristics inherent in being Jewish. It is a much more expansive claim, built on a false premise.

If one wanted to prevent any criticism of Zionism, one would not make a distinction between legit criticism and antisemitic dogwhistles at all. If one wants to ground protections in that distinction, one would not make the “part of identity” argument.

The argument in the quote is at war with itself.

The likeliest explanation is that it was authored by someone unsophisticated about antisemitism who was trying to respond to a range of arguments from actors with very different analyses.

you’re being charitable to a degree that betrays either your simplicity or your complicity.

I am not. The “part of Jewish identity” argument is massively disingenuous.

If the authors of the policy wanted simply to prevent all criticisms of Zionism, they would have said only that.

that line exists so that title VII religion protections can be used, not because the author of the statement thinks some criticism of zionists is acceptable!

how credulous are you? do you trust when a matress store has a “going out of business” sale that lasts four years?

The author of the “part of Jewish identity” argument rejects any criticism of Zionists.

But that policy is clearly the work of many hands. If they wanted what the author of the identity argument wants, they would not have included all those details.

if they hadn’t included it, they wouldn’t be able to use protections against religious discrimination to defend the zionist colonial project.

you are too credulous to understand the world.

Why would they then muddy the water with the parsing of specific examples where ‘zionist’ serves as a veil over antisemitism?

That makes no sense.

the specific examples are the fig leaf! they exist to justify the policy to credulous liberal morons, even though it will certainly be used against any and all criticism of the zionist state, not just that which you consider illegitimate.

We started from [my Twitter acquaintance]’s criticism of the “fig leaf”!

My point is that the problem lies elsewhere, in the “identity” argument.

Will you please allow me to make the point that YOU ARE RIGHT?

the problem is the policy itself. it has no reason to exist except to punish criticism of the zionist project.

defense of any part of the policy contributes to the defense of that project.

there is nothing worth salvanging here.

Nothing worth salvaging? You oppose censure for

calling for the death of Zionists, applying a “no Zionist” litmus test for participation in any NYU activity, using or disseminating tropes, stereotypes, and conspiracies about Zionists (e.g., “Zionists control the media”)

?

yes, i oppose a policy that bans any group from excluding zionists! obviously! that is antithetical to organized protest — if a group is not allowed to exclude their political opponents, what is the group for?

I think I agree with you on that point.

But you are dodging my question.

no, i an answering it with a resounding “yes”; i do oppose the thing you asked me if i oppose, and you agree that my justification is legitimate.

next question.

I dropped that fork to catch up on their replies to me completing a thought with a second tweet

Nothing worth salvaging? You oppose censure for

calling for the death of Zionists, applying a “no Zionist” litmus test for participation in any NYU activity, using or disseminating tropes, stereotypes, and conspiracies about Zionists (e.g., “Zionists control the media”)

demanding a person who is or is perceived to be Jewish or Israeli to state a position on Israel or Zionism, minimizing or denying the Holocaust, or invoking Holocaust imagery or symbols to harass or discriminate

?

yes, because i am not an idiot.

that paragraph could be twisted to say that comparing the perpetrators of the genocide in palestine and the perpetrators of the genocides in the holocaust is antisemitic and against the policy. i assume it will be.

“any protections against antisemitism will obviously be used to defend the genocide in Gaza” is itself an antisemitic claim, Sibling.

I urge you to reconsider.

And yes, comparing the perpetrators of the genocide in Palestine with Nazis is antisemitic

The Nakba and ongoing oppression of Arab Palestinians in Israel and the occupation and the military policing of the PA and the escalation to genocidal violence in response to Hamas’ 10/7 attack are all nightmare horrors.

And it remains wrong to call Israel “like the Nazis”.

[The Nazis] built murder factories.

They fed the doomed a calculated amount which optimized death by starvation, so they could make sure they were not accidentally killing people faster than they could dispose of the bodies.

i am referring to the scholarship of professor Yeshayahu Leibowitz. are you saying that he is an antisemite?

YouTube | Prof. Leibowitz: There are Judeo-Nazis. Israel Represents the Darkness of a State Body.

FWIW, I do not find it useful to call anyone an antisemite.

Shakesville | Nouning Considered Harmful^*

I do think that just as we have a norm that white people must never use The N Word (even in service of saying not to use it!) so too one can call Israel “fascist” or “genocidal” but never “like the Nazis”.

Nested quotes (like the bit above beginning “The Nakba …”) is me quote-tweeting myself. My interlocutor Blocked me for a bit while they continued to reply to me. There is something magical about the times when a sealion comes into my mentions, I reply to their comments directed to me and no others, and then the sealion Blocks me when the conversation does not go the way they want.

A little later, they unBlocked me and picked back up.

it’s a yes or a no question. answer it with one of those.

do you actually believe “comparing the perpetrators of the genocide in Palestine with Nazis is antisemitic” or not? if you do, professor leibowitz’ comparison is antisemitic. if you don’t, please clarify your belief.

I have not yet watched the video in full, but a quick look indicates that yes, Liebowitz is doing antisemitism.

I wish I could say that one can trust anti-Zionism from Jews, at least, to not be antisemitism.

But the creepy cult zealots of the Torah Judaism Twitter account exemplifies how no, one cannot.

[From a thread which became a blog post I linked repeatedly in this discussion.]

Yes, comparing the perpetrators of the genocide in Palestine with Nazis is antisemitic.

I have a hard time finding a generous interpretation of your determination to protect making that comparison.

thank you for demonstrating the inconsistency of your positions by claiming that an orthodox Israeli professor’s scholariship is antisemitic for making legitimate comparisons between nazi and zionist ideologies and practices

My position is entirely consistent.

Compare Zionism with fascism. Compare the Nakba with the genocide of Native Americans. Compare Meir Kahane with Swami Aseemanand. I might agree!

Just don’t compare Zionists with Nazis. It should be obvious why.

nothing is obvious except how the Zionist project benefits from a blanket ban on comparison between them and the Nazi project

I encourage you to skip down to “the function of misrepresentation” [on this blog post] for an exploration of one reason why the comparison of Zionism to Naziism is antisemitic

i’ve already expressed my opinion on your blogspam. if you cannot be bothered to write about it here, i cannot be bothered to read your spoor.

There are plenty of other equally damning criticisms of Zionism to make.

Referring to Nazis is so very upsetting to many Jews — even those of us who are anti-Zionists! — that it is a deliberate insult and a manipulative tactic.

It is a choice with a clear meaning.

it is a comparison between two governments, both bent on the destruction of certain peoples not their own. refute it on the merits, unless you cannot.

if you cannot countenance this because it is “upsetting,” you are welcome to cloister yourself away from the public square.

The Nakba was genocidal. We must condemn it.

The current attack on Gaza is genocidal. We must fight to end it.

And the Nazis were categorically worse.

They built murder factories.

They fed the doomed a calculated amount which optimized death by starvation, so they could make sure they were not accidentally killing people faster than they could dispose of the bodies.

They put a sign over the door: “work makes freedom”.

you have literally admitted here that both regimes are genocidal, that both are motivated by racial animus and the desire to destroy another racial group.

and yet! you claim that any comparison between the two is unacceptable.

you can see why this comes across as dishonest.

I stipulate that yes, Jews take disproportionate offense to being compared to Nazis.

As Black people take disproportionate offense to white people using The N Word.

But so what?

If one says something offensive knowing that it will offend, whether or not it was justified one is responsible for the choice to offend.

Thus it is as antisemitic to compare Jews to Nazis as it is racist for white people to use The N Word.

I did not receive a reply on that branch. Switching to a related fork:

Yes, comparing the perpetrators of the genocide in Palestine with Nazis is antisemitic.

I have a hard time finding a generous interpretation of your determination to protect making that comparison.

I have to say, you are doing well at demonstrating the case for the verbosity about standards for talking about Zionism which had [my acquaintance] worried

funny, to me you seem to be eloquently demonstrating how these sorts of rules exist only to protect zionist interests, but ah well.

Saying “if you won’t let me call Zionists ‘Nazis’, you are only protecting Zionist interests” does not make the point you seem to think it does, Sibling.

you are no sib of mine

I am trying to remain mindful of our common humanity while you insist on the importance of protecting every expression of antisemitism in the movement for Palestinian liberation.

You are not making it easy.

no, you’re a liar. don’t twist my words.

where precisely did i argue for the “protecting of every expression of antisemitism” in any movement?

i decried the blanket ban of comparing two specifc genocidal regimes, because there are useful comparisons to be made.

that you can’t denigrate me without outright lying about what i’ve said doesn’t make you look more honest, Buddy

You said here that opponents of the genocide in Gaza have a right to say anything. Is that not protecting every expression of antisemitism they might make?

the policy as a whole is what offends me. if you’re incapable of concluding that from my words, the fault is not mine.

policing the language of people who criticize genocide is not a job for campus cops.

I said policing the language was not a job for campus cops. i did not say that it should never be discussed.

it is job for the Palestinian people and no one else. it is especially not a job for those who are aligned with the zionists killing them, like american police.

I believe that, given the horrors they face, we should cut Palestinians significant slack for intemperate language.

That does not extend to allowing them to adjudicate what constitutes antisemitism.

What group other than Jews would you subject to that standard?

i’m not subjecting any racial or religious group to any standard

i am saying that any person should be allowed to compare genocidal regimes to each other, and that attempts to stop this function only to protect those genocidal regimes.

i do not think that any genocidal regime should be afforded any special considerations regarding the language we used to discuss it because those considerations will always be used to silence the critics of those genocidal regimes.

it is acceptable to allow for some offensive speech in the criticism of any government which is committing a genocide because stopping any genocide is more important than stopping offensive speech.

you are making the case that some speech is so offensive, we should have rules against it — rules which you have acknowledged will be used against legitimate criticism of genocidal regimes — while i think that there is no speech so offensive that banning it is worth this.

My position is entirely consistent.

Compare Zionism with fascism. Compare the Nakba with the genocide of Native Americans. Compare Meir Kahane with Swami Aseemanand. I might agree!

Just don’t compare Zionists with Nazis. It should be obvious why.

If you object to this standard, then you should see why I think you are really just looking for license to say antisemitic things rationalized as protest against Israel’s genocidal attack on Gaza

i don’t think that’s true, and i definitely don’t think you’ve presented any reasoning that would make it true.

why should i see that? certainly not because you’ve explained it. Certainly not because it’s obvious to everyone; it is not obvious to me.

present your argument!

If you cannot make your case with reference to fascism, every other genocide in history, and every other political movement in history?

If you really need to call Jews “Nazis” to make your case?

That is not a case worth making.

where, exactly, did I say that anyone “need[ed]” to call anyone anything?

I said that the restrictions you think the discussion of genocide should be subject to serve no one except genocidal organizations.

you can evidently read. don’t act like you can’t.

The restriction I have focused on — because you have decided to advocate against this restriction — is Don’t Call Jews “Nazis” and Don’t Call ‘Zionists’ Nazis Because That Lands As The Same Thing.

yes, restricting criticism of a specific genocidal organization serves only that organization. conflating criticism of the zionist occupation of palestine with the writings of Turner Diaries enthusiasts serves that same genocidal cause.

Who is conflating criticism of Israel with the writings of Turner Diaries enthusiasts? Not me.

you are saying that any comparison between the zionist state and the nazi state is antisemitic, yes?

i am using the term as a metonym for “antisemitic” to emphasize the lack of governmental power held by those who’s distasteful speech you think should be criminalized.

I should note that that anti-Zionist tic of referring to Israel as “The Zionist State” singles out Israel as uniquely illegitimate among nations, which is a red flag.

You are making a huge leap there.

The Turner Diaries is a racist, antisemitic manifesto for a bloody fascist revolution.

I can fault the racism of a white friend using The N Word while singing along with a hip hop song without saying it is as bad as The Turner Diaries.

By that same principle, your enthusiasm for comparing Israel to Nazi Germany is antisemitic, but it is nowhere near in the same weight class of antisemitism as The Turner Diaries.

I received no reply. Stepping back to get one last fork:

The restriction I have focused on — because you have decided to advocate against this restriction — is Don’t Call Jews “Nazis” and Don’t Call ‘Zionists’ Nazis Because That Lands As The Same Thing.

Are you really saying this only serves “genocidal organizations”?

Like you, I want to avoid creating an instrument for blocking any criticism of Zionists & Zionism. This discussion started from me objecting to the “Jewish identity” clause in the NYU policy because of that problem!

So what bad restrictions do you see me advocating?

Is there any conceivable comment made in the name of countering the genocide in Gaza which you would object to as antisemitic?

certainly there are comments i would object to on the basis of their innacuracy.

that does not mean that i would ever support a policy to punish people for making them, because i know that it can also be used as a weapon to suppress perfectly legitimate criticisms.

So your answer is no, you cannot think of any comment made in the name of countering Israel’s genocidal attack on Gaza which is actionable.

“Free Palestine! Kill the Jews!” contains no “inaccuracy”, so it is both OK with you and should not be subject to action by NYU?

if you are going to keep pretending to be subliterate in order to misrepresent what i have said, i am not going to continue entertaining you

I have yet to hear you identify any comment made in the name of countering Israel’s genocidal attack on Gaza which you would consider meaningfully antisemitic, much less actionably antisemitic.

So I posed an example to see what you think of it. Hence the question mark.

Your comment “that does not mean that i would ever support a policy to punish people for making them” seems utterly clear that there is no comment made in opposition to Israel’s genocidal attack on Gaza which you consider actionable.

Perhaps you want to rephrase?

Lemme take a step back here.

I recognize that powerful hardline Zionist organizations show up to disingenuously claim that every criticism of Israel constitutes “antisemitism”.

As I am Jewish, my disgust at that is intense.

And it should be obvious how the movement for Palestinian liberation presents an opportunity for entryism by, as you put it, “fans of The Turner Diaries”.

As I am Jewish, my dread over that is intense.

And I agree that Israel’s genocidal attack on Gaza is horrific and requires the strongest efforts we can muster to stop it.

As I am Jewish, my disgust that Israel claims to commit these atrocities in my name enrages me.

So not for nothing, for months the Tweet I have kept pinned on my profile emphasizes how unfair it is that we have navigate disingenuous claims about antisemitism by the worst people, on all sides, while we confront these horrors.

It is profoundly unfair to the important — and currently urgent — cause of Palestinian liberation that it is a minefield of deceit and outright lies in all directions, plus accidental & deliberate antisemitism.

But one must step carefully. Please do.

So please register that I am not trying to trick you into accepting fetters on our efforts to end the genocide.

And please also register that this flak from you exemplifies why Jews who oppose Israel’s wrongs do not step up more.

Those were my last comments to my interlocutor, and they have not replied.

I wish I were surprised that I have not received any example from them about a statement which would be out of bounds.

What I think Israel is trying to do

I have called Israel’s attack on Gaza genocidal since just a week after Hamas’ 7 October attack, informed by the article A Textbook Case of Genocide in the leftist Jewish publication Jewish Currents.

Israel’s genocidal assault on Gaza is quite explicit, open, and unashamed. Perpetrators of genocide usually do not express their intentions so clearly [⋯] Gallant’s orders on October 9^th were [⋯] explicit. Israel’s goal is to destroy the Palestinians of Gaza. And those of us watching around the world are derelict in our responsibility to prevent them from doing so.

That said, it amazes me to have a social media feed full of people managing to describe genocide with inventive exaggerations of the horrors, which I would have thought impossible. I have written before about the double-edged sword of needing to call the attack genocidal despite the word inviting confusions.

Weak understanding of genocides conjours serious misunderstandings of the dynamics shaping the situation. I would rather counter them directly than to back away from using the term “genocide”, which we need in order to respond to both this crisis and others we can sadly expect in the future.

Here I want to unpack what I think Israel is and is not doing, drawing on resources I accumulated in an ongoing Twitter thread.

My analysis in brief

Israel’s ongoing attack on Gaza is not the fulfillment of ambitions prior to 10/7 on the part of Netanyahu, his Likud governing coalition, Israelis in general, or the long Zionist movement. Israel is neither trying to kill off Gazans nor trying to annex Gaza.

Rather, Israel’s attack began as simply a traumatized, bloodthirsty panic response after the 7 October 2023 Hamas attack, with Netanyahu desperate to distract Israelis from the catastrophic failure of the security policy which underpins his claim to leadership. Americans who remember 9/11 should understand this well.

Israel’s attack then quickly developed into a poorly-considered attempt to secure Israel, using ruthless military force to destroy Hamas, so that Israel can return to their perpetual brutal military policing of Gaza from the outside, as they did over the prior decade plus. Israel targets neither Gaza’s people nor the Palestinian Authority pseudo-state created after Oslo. The destruction Israel wreaks is “collatoral damage” from Israel’s callous willingness to kill as many civilians as it takes to eradicate Hamas. Enacting & justifying that leads inevitably to genocidal brutality, in violation of international law and basic human decency.

Preëmpting an objection

The state of The Discourse being what it is, some read this as nothing other than pro-Israel apologetics: “Gosh, Israel is technically engaged in a ‘genocide’ but golly, the genocide is Not Really That Bad”.

No. Finding Israel’s attack a few notches short of the worst conceivable horror still recognizes it as horror. Genocide is genocide. It is evil. Netanyahu, the Likudniks, IDF leadership, and far too many IDF soldiers belong in the dock at the Hague for crimes against humanity. All people have an obligation to unequivocally demand the end of these horrors. (Plus justice far beyond returning to the status quo ante.) The US has an obligation to sever all support for Israel until they permanently end this, make amends to the people of Gaza, and deliver Israeli leaders to justice.

Nor am I drawing on denials of Israel’s wrongs. My analysis rests on experts, Palestinians fiercely critical of Israel, … and one Israeli frankly eager to kill Palestinians. This post was born from me forwarding a Twitter thread by Palestinian İyad el-Baghdadi | إياد البغدادي <@iyad_elbaghdadi> back on 13 November 2023. That whole thread is worth your time. (I have captured it in full at the bottom of this post.) I want to surface a key bit. Emphasis mine:

Right off the bat let’s debunk some common misconceptions about “genocide”: You don’t have to exterminate everyone for it to be genocide. Genocide is not a crime of body count (although body count matters). Genocide is a crime of intent.

I was heartened and honored to see this notification about my Twitter thread which grew from that first RT:

I invite you to examine Hjalti Árna’s <@sjaltiarna> feed to see whether he would share apologetics for Israel. (Spoiler: He would not.)

Filling out my read of events

In the months immediately after 10/7, I saw a lot of conspiracy theories arguing that Netanyahu & his Likudnik coalition cunningly engineered Hamas’ atrocities of 10/7 in order to justify to the world the extermination of Palestinians in Gaza they longed for. This makes no sense.

Bibi cares what the world thinks? Israel lacks the capacity to kill more civilians than they have? Netanyahu’s backdoor support for Hamas as a foil gives him control of Hamas? The Likudniks were in power for two decades and just now got around to their master plan? No.

Though history is rich in horrors and brutality in the name of Israel, neither Zionism nor Israel nor even Likud rule have been driven by a lust to kill Palestinians. Viciousness since 10/7 is a shocking escalation.

Netanyahu’s policy toward Gaza has long been clear. In 2005, when he became leader of Likud, Israel removed all of their settlements in Gaza. During his tenure as Prime Minister of Israel for 14 of the last 15 years, he has maintained a cordon of military policing outside of Gaza; whenever Palestinians demonstrated the slightest threat, he ordered IDF rifles, artillery, and bombs to Teach The Palestinians A Lesson, with the expectation that Palestians would eventually accept their unjust, impoverished conditions and stop bothering Israelis. Until 7 October 2023, it had been his unmistakable plan to maintain that stupid, lazy, brutal order forever.

It was, of course, absurd to imagine that Palestinians would surrender to their oppression. On 10/7 Israel was blindsided by Hamas’ attack demonstrating that of course Israel’s policy did not even ensure security for Israelis.

Netanyahu could only imagine that this catastrophe resulted from insufficient brutality, and lashed out. Once that started, his nebulous endgame was only to crush Hamas militarily and return to the status quo ante. This was evident in the Council on Foreign Relations’ brief Israel’s War on Hamas: What to Know from just two days after 10/7:

A common argument about counterterrorism is that “there is no military solution,” but that’s not completely true, provided that a country does not care about harming civilians. For instance, the Sri Lankan military’s campaign in 2009 completely crushed the Tamil Tigers. An estimated twenty thousand civilians were killed along with the Tigers’ founder and leader, his entire command staff, and virtually all the organization’s officers and rank-and-file. A terrorist group can be destroyed in this way, but it comes with a tremendous loss of civilian lives.

Everything which has happened since aligns with that prediction.

Netanyahu avoids naming an endgame, so it is tempting to look to the bloodthirsty Kahanists in the Likud coalition like Ben-Gvir who do want to kill every Palestinian in Gaza … and then also in the West Bank … and to annex all of that territory under the flag of Israel. But they do not hold the tiller. We know because Israel’s strategic choices do not align with their aspirations. Bloody as these last several months have been, Israel obviously could have killed many more Palestinians had they chosen to. Even Israel hardliners who would rationalize annexation concur about Israel’s aims:

An impenetrable buffer zone facing Israel, another on the Egyptian Rafah border to control all access, and 2 salients dividing the strip into 3 areas. The northern one is now under construction.

Demilitarised with no way to rearm.

This plan is a fantasy which will not even serve Israel. Israel apologists’ arguments for its necessity are nonsense.

There is close to a consensus among counter-terrorism experts that beating groups like Hamas requires two complementary elements: a sustained campaign to degrade its military capabilities and a political change to undermine its power among the populations that support it.

Israel, then, could have responded to October 7th with a protracted counter-terrorist campaign. Over years (not mere weeks or months), Israel could have built (or re-built, rather) its capacity to collect high-quality intelligence to identify, locate, and target the Hamas operatives in Gaza. Israel could have then targeted high-value Hamas figures with surgical airstrikes and special forces incursions into Gaza. This would include targeting both Hamas leaders and the foot soldiers who perpetrated the October 7th massacres.

Israel used this exact strategy in the wake of the second intifada in the early 2000s. The campaign effectively led to a sharp decrease in Hamas’ ability to kill Israelis. The strategy was so effective that for a while, Hamas hid the name of its leader to prevent him from being targeted.

And in parallel, Israel would have had to open up a viable political alternative to Hamas for Palestinians.

We must recognize Israel’s strategy as genocidal both because of the catastrophic impact it has already had on Gazans and because it lays track for escalation to even worse when it inevitably fails to produce the “peace” and security its architects imagine.

And we must recognize that Israel has not yet committed to even worse horrors. We need to be clear-eyed so that we may best act to prevent things coming to that.

Related commentaries

“A mass assassination factory”: Inside Israel’s calculated bombing of Gaza

An examination of how indifference to civilian casualties is entirely sufficient to explain the deadliness of Israel’s attack, from +972 on 30 November 2023:

In one case discussed by the sources, the Israeli military command knowingly approved the killing of hundreds of Palestinian civilians in an attempt to assassinate a single top Hamas military commander. “The numbers increased from dozens of civilian deaths [permitted] as collateral damage as part of an attack on a senior official in previous operations, to hundreds of civilian deaths as collateral damage,” said one source.

“Nothing happens by accident,” said another source. “When a 3-year-old girl is killed in a home in Gaza, it’s because someone in the army decided it wasn’t a big deal for her to be killed — that it was a price worth paying in order to hit [another] target. We are not Hamas. These are not random rockets. Everything is intentional. We know exactly how much collateral damage there is in every home.”

IDF measures to “prevent” civilian casualties

An examination of a shallowly mechanistic pseudo-humane effort which only adds insult to injury. More Terry Gilliam’s Brazil than gulags, not that deaths from absurd miscalculations are any less tragic than deaths from deliberate calculation. From James Rosen-Birch <@provisionalidea> on 2 Dec 2023:

Over 1.6M people were told to evacuate from the red zone, south. They have not been allowed to return.

Now, the south has been cut into sectors sequentially subject to, as the IDF says, “crushing military attack”. It has been called “a macabre game of Battleship”.

The IDF’s approach to notifying civilians this time was to publish a digital map and text people the cell numbers to be bombed in the next fifteen minutes. Gazans don’t have electricity and are under a communications blockade. I kid you not, this is “like and subscribe if you don’t want to die” — to people with no power or internet.

Civilian deaths

A tally far too low to reflect an effort to kill civilians, but far too high to believe that Israel has made the necessary efforts to protect civilians, from the UK Guardian on 9 Dec 2023:

In the first three weeks of the current operation, Swords of Iron, the civilian proportion of total deaths rose to 61%, in what Levy described as “unprecedented killing” for Israeli forces in Gaza. The ratio is significantly higher than the average civilian toll in all the conflicts around the world from the second world war to the 1990s, in which civilians accounted for about half the dead, according to Levy.

The hollow endgame

A Twitter thread from Monica Marks <@MonicaLMarks> on 26 June 2024 demonstrating how Israel’s strategy is barely a plan at all.

After nearly 9 months, this paper floating around Israeli leaders’ desks seems the closest Netanyahu has to a “day after” plan. It contains a parade of red flags re:

1. basic respect for post-WWII laws of war
2. Palestinians’ self-determination
3. realistic achievability

The first precondition for Israel’s day after here is “total defeat” of Hamas à la WWII defeat of Germany & Japan. This comparison neglects the fact that total war tactics on the order of Dresden, Hiroshima & Nagasaki are now politically unfeasible & illegal under international law.

The paper’s authors analyzed post-World War II Germany and Japan as successful cases, and Iraq and Afghanistan after the U.S. invasions as unsuccessful cases.

The first precondition is the total defeat of Hamas, the paper states.

”If there is no total defeat, there is no point in starting the attempts at deradicalization, rehabilitating systems, building new governing infrastructure and so on. History teaches us that rehabilitation under fire will fail,” the paper states, citing American nation-building attempts in Iraq and Afghanistan while the wars were still ongoing.

The erasure of Palestinians’ core grievances — about the injustices of occupation & blockade, degrading & dehumanising treatment, and denial of self-determination — and their conflation w/ Nazi & kamikaze extremism ignores the elephant in the room and reads as prejudicial & essentialist.

“From a murderous ideology to a moderate society: transforming and rebuilding Gaza after Hamas” is a 28-page paper, obtained by Jewish Insider, outlining four academics’ recommended dos and don’ts for ensuring Hamas and Gaza are no longer a threat to Israel.

Israeli academics Netta Barak-Corren of Hebrew University, who is currently at Princeton University, Danny Orbach of Hebrew University, Netanel Flamer of Bar-Ilan University and Harel Chorev-Halewa of Tel Aviv University teamed up in November, on a volunteer basis, to combine their expertise in law, military history and the Middle East and compile their recommendations, which they have said all members of Israel’s now-defunct war cabinet read.

According to the document, “Israel’s ability to achieve its goals depends not only on the military and diplomatic campaign taking place these days, but also on its ability to rehabilitate and transform a nation that was led by a murderous ideology, to produce stable institutions and an Arabic culture that does not educate for jihad, a culture that accepts the existence of the State of Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people.”

[Emphasis hers]

It’s worth noting that, even in Germany & Japan, US occupation “succeeded” by

1. addressing, rather than perpetuating, extremism push factors (eg: Marshall Plan)
2. realising that German & Japanese societies weren’t death cult monoliths + pushing towards democratic elections

Secondly, this plan fundamentally opposes Palestinian self-determination & democracy. It regards “Arab democracy” in general as both threat & cultural oxymoron, and aspires to a Gaza that’s ruled by some combination of Egypt, UAE or Saudi with significant restrictions on speech. Endorsing Israel-approved satrapy & authoritarianism in Palestine renders criticism of both Hamas’s authoritarianism and Abu Mazen’s resistance to elections (both are real problems) hypocritical. Continued repression is a recipe for rebellions and does not address the core drivers.

Lastly, this plan peddles the surprisingly stubborn fiction that Egypt, UAE, or Saudi will step in with a deus ex machina (and antidemocratic version of) the Marshall Plan for Gaza — simultaneously patrolling the rubble on Israel’s behalf and bailing the enclave out Daddy Warbucks-style. The short response here, from those living in the real world, is that they will not. Analysts knowledgeable on the Gulf powers’ Israel-Palestine policies, like Aziz Alghashian <@AzizAlghashian> and Hussein Ibish, have been repeating this since October. The political & security risks are too high, as are the risks that Israel simply destroys the new hospitals or whatever else they’ve built in the next round. The entitlement in assuming the Gulf will magically clean up Israel’s mess & embroil itself in insurgency is profound.

Israel certainly hasn’t spent the past 9 months sweetening any vision of this plan for its Arab partners, either. It’s played fast & loose with the UAE’s marquee efforts to aid Gaza, as shown by its attacks near its field hospital & on the World Central Kitchen convoy it funded.

So it’s exceedingly bleak, though unsurprising, that this paper is “circulating” on Israeli leaders’ desks after 9 months of levelling Gaza into an uninhabitable wasteland that will be far harder for anyone to administer, let alone curb extremism in, even in the best of scenarios. What we see here are tacit justifications for eliminationism / total war, stubborn refusal to address Palestinians’ core grievances, and a managing-the-conflict (versus solving it) approach that kicks the can down the road.

The reliance on magical thinking about the wants & capabilities of Israel’s Arab partners also make this a quixotically aspirational approach — too vague and unrealistic to constitute a viable plan. If this accurately reflects the closest thing Netanyahu has to a day-after plan for Gaza, there’s a high likelihood Israel will tumble into drawn-out military occupation of the strip, which will strain and wither in ebbs & flows of humanitarian crisis for at least a decade hence.

Crucial additional point here from John Lyndon:

Key variable between Palestine and Japan / Germany (there’s lots…):

[Japan & Germany were] sovereign states beforehand, occupied for 7 years afterwards, before sovereignty restored.

57 years of occupation in Israel-Palestine before Oct 7^th — and no sovereignty in past nor on offer for future — limits the comparison’s utility.

An Israel hardliner’s read

Saul Sadka is a cheerleader for Israel’s attack who obviously would applaud the IDF killing as many Gazans as possible. Instead, on 21 August 2024 he described in detail evidence that the IDF are trying to do almost exactly what I have described Israel doing, delighted by evidence that Israel is close to reconstructing Gaza along the lines of the cantonized West Bank Palestinian Authority.

In March, after analysing satelite maps and speaking to friends who had been in Gaza, I predicted the IDF plan, which has finally come to fruition today. Israeli tanks are now busy taking control of the port of Khan Younis (red dot) having vacated and cleared the third corridor at Gaza's narrowest point at Kisufim.

An impenetrable buffer zone facing Isarel, another on the Egyptian Rafah border to control all access, and 2 salients dividing the strip into 3 areas. The northern one is now under construction.

Demilitarised with no way to rearm.

Alongside the ever widening Rafah corridor that hermetically cuts Hamas off from resupply, and the now 6km wide Netzarim corridor with its 5 fortified bases that separates Gaza City from the rest of the Strip, Gaza is now cut into three. The humanitarian zone is now also cut in two by the new corridor.

Expect this new corridor to be fortified with bases. I would not be surprised if the IDF decided to form two additional corridors (yellow lines) to separate Beit Hanoun from Gaza City and to separate Rafah from Khan Younis.

The 1km buffer zone along the border looks to also be almost entirely cleared.

There are also a number of other military roads that have had large areas around the cleared of obstacles meaning that the IDF can sit back in their bases but be at any point in Strip with 5 minutes and via unpredictable routes. The point is to make the Gaza Strip strategically controllable by a minimal IDF force.

The only urban areas that the IDF have yet to enter in force (though they are already starting) are the towns in the central portion, Deir al Balah and Nuseirat. Only there can the Hamas infrastructure still be anything like its pre-war level.

It is almost certain that most of the remaining Hamas leaders, including Yahya Sinwar, are hiding out there, as are most of the most remaining hostages. They are now surrounded on four sides, with no hope of resupply, totally enemy surveillance as if they were in a fish tank.

The IDF has played this really well. They played the slow game, perhaps against their will and under US pressure, but managed to reduce Hamas from a dug in mighty army able to fire 1,000 rockets at hour to a insurgent rabble who can only fire a rocket on special occasions.

Hamas are contained and almost totally defeated. Israel did this at a cost of 330 heroes while eliminating 17,000 enemies, taking 5,000 POWs, and taking many 1,000s more out of the fight via injury.

The purple areas are the two central corridors, and they surround a rectangle of land about 3km by 10km where we can expect the final major engagements to be fought:

The towns of Deir al Balah and Nuseirat are the only places where Hamas still might have major infrastructure that hasn’t yet been destoryed of heavily degraded. Anyone who doubts the massive degradation of Hamas consider:

1. Their response to the elimination of their number one leader was to fire two rockets into the sea. They used to fire hundreds each day.
2. Even assuming a minimal 0.5 major injury per fatality rate and taking the maximum figure of 40,000 for Hamas’ initial strength, they are reduced to at most 8,000 men after POWs are acciunted for. It is probably much lower, since both those assumptions are very generous.

Demonstrating genocide

The full Twitter thread from İyad el-Baghdadi from 13 November 2023 about how Israel’s moves, though short of maximal slaughter, still unmistakably qualify as genocide:

How can someone who writes such a wonderful analysis make the claim that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. This is neither backed up by facts nor scientifically tenable by the definition of the word. It is simply wrong. And discredits the very good thread.

Alright, since you decided to ask me, I’ll tell you why the same guy you praise for “wonderful analysis” also concludes, based on the facts & evidence, that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza:

There are multiple definitions of genocide, but the most widely cited is the 2002 Rome Statute’s, which established the International Criminal Court (ICC). Around 120 countries are signatories (notably the US and Israel still refuse to sign it):

Article 6
Genocide

For the purpose of this Statute, “genocide” means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:

1. Killing members of the group;
2. Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
3. Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
4. Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
5. Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

Right off the bat let’s debunk some common misconceptions about “genocide”: You don’t have to exterminate everyone for it to be genocide. Genocide is not a crime of body count (although body count matters). Genocide is a crime of intent.

The bar for the crime of genocide is met when there’s intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a people. “destroy” can manifest in many ways — killing is one, but also inflicting upon them unlivable conditions. “Conditions calculated to bring about the group’s destruction”.

Since intent is key, let’s focus on it. Normally^*, whoever commits genocide won’t go out and say “hey we’d like to wipe these people out”. Normally, they hide their intent, and intent is typically the most difficult part to prove. (Hold on to the word “normally” for a sec please)

Since intent is rarely explicit, the law allows it to be inferred from broader context including:

• Scale & systematic nature of the violence
• Chosen methods
• Choices of victims/targets
• Evidence of cover up
• Patterns of narratives / speech used by political / military leaders

Alright, so let’s for a sec follow the “inference” route. It is now very well documented that Israel systematically targeted:

• Hospitals
• Water tanks
• Solar panels
• Journalists
• Bakeries
• Fishing boats
• Schools
• Ambulances
• Residential blocks
• Aid & UN workers

(I don’t have to go point by point because all of the above is very well documented and even captured live). It’s also well documented that Israel’s chosen bombs / methods are indiscriminate (easily proven by the fact that ~70% of the 12k dead are women, children, or elderly).

It is also well documented that Israel:

• Cut off the flow of food, water, & fuel to a civilian population
• Targeted basic telecom infrastructure (internet, phone service)
• Used easy-to-debunk disinfo & lies to pin the blame for every one of its atrocities on the other side

I know the typical US reaction would be “but Hamas!” To them Hamas is hiding in water tanks and solar panels. But if this is about Hamas, someone explain why 150+ Palestinians (incl 40+ children) have been killed in the West Bank, where there’s no Hamas?

Anyway: It’s also well documented that Israeli ministry of intel produced a multi-stage plan for inflicting mass suffering on the population of Gaza to force them off their land and into the Sinai desert. So far Israel is following this plan actually. ([This] is important because while “ethnic cleansing” is not by itself a crime under the Rome Statute, it is widely acknowledged that there’s a continuum between genocide & ethnic cleansing. Genocide is often a way to ethnically cleanse a people or force a population transfer.)

It’s also uncontroversial that Israel’s leaders have repeatedly and systematically used language & references that makes it clear that everyone in Gaza, and not only Hamas, is a target. Israel’s PM even tweeted it, and not just once:

Prime Minister of Israel <@IsraelPM> 10/16/23:
This is a struggle between the children of light and the children of darkness, between humanity and the law of the jungle.

Netanyahu declaring invasion: “You must remember what Amalek has done to you, says our Holy Bible”

1 Samuel 15:3

“Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass”

Okay so now that we get to the speech/rhetoric of Israeli leadership, we can drop the pretense that we have to “infer” genocidal intent. There’s so much documented. Remember I told you to hold on to that “normally” a few tweets ago? Yeah, you can stop holding on to it now.

There are several folks who have been collecting these statements of intent. One of them is br Abu Bakr Hussain who’s updating a list daily and has it available for download as well. Not everything in his list is from politicians / leadership, but a lot is.

You can also look at the replies under this tweet. I believe others including Muhammad Shehada <@muhammadshehad2> and Mohammed El-Kurd <@m7mdkurd> also have been collecting official & unofficial statements under tweets & in threads of their own.

Craig Mokhiber worked at the UN for 30+ years and until recently was director of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights’ NY office. Listen to him explain how normally intent is the hardest to prove, but in this case, intent “is an easy case to make”:

In his resignation letter dated 28 October, Craig Mokhiber, who served as the director of the New York office of the UN’s High Commissioner for Human Rights, labelled Israel’s military operations in Gaza as “textbook genocide”

But now that we’re citing experts, let’s mention how so many actual genocide scholars have assessed that Israel is committing the crime of genocide. Again there’s so much of this that I can’t fit it all in a thread but some are under this tweet:

Is someone collecting all the statements & opinions by actual genocide scholars & researchers whose professional assessment that what is happening in Gaza right now is genocide? If you do please link. If you don’t please retweet.

An important voice has been Arnesa Buljušmić-Kustura <@Rrrrnessa>, who is both an academic expert on genocide and a survivor of genocide. But there’s also Luis Moreno Ocampo, ex-ICC prosecutor. And Raz Segal, an Israeli expert on modern genocide:

Democracy Now! — “A Textbook Case of Genocide”: Israeli Holocaust Scholar Raz Segal Decries Israel’s Assault on Gaza

(BTW correct me if I’m wrong but even in the case of the Bosnian genocide & the Iraqi Kurdish genocide, explicit public statements of intent were relatively scarce and intent had to be inferred from chain of command orders & military tactics / context. Here it’s more explicit.)

So yes: I write some decent threads on geopolitical analysis. Yes: I’m a human being who gets exhausted and triggered. But when I say Israel is committing genocide it’s not hyperbole. It’s a conclusion based upon the facts & evidence, and the conclusion of many noted experts. Ultimately whether or not it’s genocide will have to be determined through a thorough international independent investigation, followed by a fair, balanced, public trial. But we know we won’t get that. Israel & the US are not party to the ICC. Israel is above the law.

I can still hear them say “but Hamas!”

• Hamas very likely committed war crimes & crimes against humanity on Oct 7
• Israel’s actions since Oct 7 (fully backed by the West) can credibly be described as genocidal

No contradiction there.

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Okay, you could read the entire thread. Or you can just skip here and listen to an actual genocide expert lay it out better than I ever can. Worth the 13 mins of your time. Thank you Owen Jones <@owenjonesjourno>.

This entire post emerges from my own Twitter thread which started from sharing the thread above.

The comment skeptical that Israel’s attack qualfies as genocide, which kicked of Baghdadi’s thread, responded to an earlier, even longer thread of Baghdadi’s addressing an array of dynamics shaping the first few weeks of Israel’s attack on Gaza. It is so instructive that I have captured it as well, in its own post.

Gaza, the Democratic Party, and strategy

Friends and allies have recently given me a hard time for saying that Candidate Harris has been wise to avoid a strong position against Israel's attack on Gaza. This is not because I support Israel, or am willing to sacrifice Palestinains in service of the political fortunes of the Democratic Party. So why?

What is right

A week after 10/7 it was clear that Israel’s attack on Gaza was genocidal. Had I been President, by November of last year I would have made every move I could to both pressure Israel and to end US complicity, including blocking weapons and other aid, freezing Israeli assets, and any other move the State Department could come up with. I can respect the President moving slower, either because he did not register how bad things were so quickly, or because he was trying some backroom pressure first — both of which I think apply to Biden — but by January at the latest the President had a moral obligation to act.

I want to examine the strategic headwinds against that.

Biden’s early situation

I believe that a moral stand was the only thing the President could achieve.

Had he made the moves he should have, he would have been drawn into an ugly and politically expensive Congressional fight over the limits of Presidential authority, which he would have lost. Even had the US completely cut off Israel, it would not have changed their course. Netanyahu is committed, able to prosecute the attack into the near future without US support, and rightly confident that Israel can find other sponsors. Imagine Putin seizing the opportunity to move a major US ally into his column.

Consider this this observation about the domestic dynamics deterring Biden from making a hard move:

If you are a ‘why can’t Dems do an immediate arms embargo of Israel’, I’d like you to think about how much you credited Biden for ending the war in Afghanistan. And if the answer isn’t ‘so much that I defended him loudly on every issue after that’ you have your answer. [⋯] The reason people support the status quo is that breaking from the status quo comes at a huge political cost. Biden wasn’t rewarded for ending a war. Obama wasn’t rewarded for getting us healthcare.

Biden is not the kind of pol to take a stand for strictly moral reasons. And it is obvious that his moral reasoning is too sympathetic toward Israel, as an old man stuck on the memory of Israel as weak and embattled, as a creature of Washington’s longstanding alliance with Israel for a constellation of mostly ugly reasons.

Biden’s current situation

Pragmatic deterrents to action have only stacked up over time.

Having dithered for so long, taking an entirely moral stand would be weak and incoherent. What, Israel is only in the wrong now? At this point the President must focus on what could be effective.

Even if Biden cares not at all about Palestinian lives, he does have every reason to want a lasting ceasefire at least through Election Day. It would make him, Dems, and by extension Harris look effective. Even Americans who think Israel has been entirely in the right want an end to the fighting. And more importantly, it would get the issue off the table so Biden can do other things in his last few months in office, with securing a Harris win at or near the top of the list.

But the US can only cut off Israel once. If one admits any pragmatism at all, the President must keep our powder dry for when the US has the most leverage, whether just grasping for political advantage or actually trying to protect Palestinian lives. Plausible windows of opportunity include:

• A moment when Netanyahu faces a major domestic challenge to his power
• Immediately after the Israelis finally ditch Netanyahu, when the next leader is hungry for US support
• Immediately after a President Harris takes office, to say “there is a new sheriff in town”

We still should not wait, but given those conditions, we will.

Candidate Harris’ situation

Frankly I doubt that a President Harris will do the right thing and take the opportunity to present an immediate hard line against Israel. But I love that I don’t know, because Candidate Harris is wisely keeping away from the issue as much as she can. Whatever stance a President Harris would take on Gaza:

• From the position of a candidate, she cannot affect Israel’s actions
• It would be hopelessly awkward for Candidate-and-also-VP Harris to run directly against Biden on any issue, much less foreign policy, much less Gaza
• Gaza is a wedge issue for Democratic Party voters, so no stance can increase her strength, and despite progressives feeling like “everyone” sees Gaza as a nightmare, most Dems in the base remain at least somewhat sympathetic to Israel

So I hope that Harris will continue to steer clear, and expect that she will.

Implications for advocates of Palestinian liberation

Maddeningly, this leaves nothing to gain and much to lose by pressuring Candidate Harris. Nothing addressed to her candidacy can impact Biden’s policy while he is President. Any movement critical of Candidate Harris will alienate Dems enthusiastic about her candidacy, which the movement to protect Gaza cannot afford. Anyone who fails at an attempt to move her as a candidate will look weak. Most importantly, linking the issue of Gaza to Harris hurts her in the election, and pessimistic as I am about what President Harris’ Israel policy will turn out to be, I am 100% certain that Trump’s would be worse, so even if you share my pessimism and care only about Palestinian liberation, supporting a Harris win is vital.

So galling as has been to see the Dems dodge the issue at the Convention, the best place for the movement to stand is — and will continue to be — outside the Presidential race. We face a grisly interval during which the genocide will continue while US advocates cannot plausibly do anything to compel the US government to act.

I don’t pretend to have any standing in the movement for Palestinian liberation, but for what it’s worth I see things implied in these dynamics which both the movement and I can do to prepare for whatever turn comes after that. If we propagandize inattentive Americans with the case for ending Israel’s attack on Gaza and for American support for Palestinian sovereignty in the longer term, Dems will follow them. Cultivating visible, broad movement strength & public support gives it political power. Convincing Harris that she can work with the movement increases the degree to which she will.

If, as I hope, President Harris proves even a bit better than Biden, progress on those fronts will give her cover to act. If, as I expect, President Harris is no more interested in protecting Palestinians than Biden has been, these same things will make pressuring her more effective. If, as I dread, we face a President Trump, these same things will enable a coalition with Democrats and others resisting the many horrors.

The situation is awful. Let’s do what we can, prepare for future opportunities, and not make things worse.

An earlier version of this case

Responding to the crafty three-minute “Freedom” ad for the Harris campaign, a Twitter acquaintance I respect commented:

Now do this juxtaposed with the horror the US is funding in the #GazaGenocide 🤢

As long as the US remains unwilling to admit faults, this won’t mean shit

There’s a reason it’s a pride flag. Not the inclusive pride flag also celebrating trans rights

#hypocrites

In the course of discussion starting there, I said some things worth capturing.

The clip is propagandizing for a national public interest in inclusivity in terms intended to motivate Americans uncertain whether that is desirable.

That is short of the profound inclusivity we need, but in the face of fascism I will take it as a valuable instrument.

Understand that I think the Biden administration and Democratic Party are wrong to not take a much harder line against Israel. I believe there are strong moves the US can make which could force Israel to end the horrors. And even if ineffective, we have a moral obligation.

But.

It is legitimate to think that Biden does not have better moves available.

There are good reasons to expect that Netanyahu will shrug off any pressure Biden could possibly apply, making it wise for the US to keep our powder dry for a better opportunity. There are good reasons to think that if Biden tried to block the exercise of prior US commitments to Israel, he would lose the resulting fight in Congress, wasting the last leg of his Presidency to no benefit.

And support for Israel is a wedge issue among Dems. Given that the Dems are in a close race against fascists who would support Israel’s attack more, a reasonable person could consider avoiding it the least worst option, even just in terms of protecting Palestinians.

Again, I think it is wrong to conclude that this is Least Worst. But that is a legitimate position. It explains why Dem leaders who want the US to work harder to end to Israel’s attack on Gaza have not forcefully raised the issue at the convention.

I offer no moral defense of Biden or the Democratic Party here.

If I were POTUS I would exercise every lever I could to end Israel’s attack on Gaza and American complicity in supporting it, including a total trade embargo, freezing Israeli assets, et cetera. Biden has failed in his moral obligation to stand against the horrors Israel is enacting in Gaza, and he has been far too credulous and rhetorically supportive about Israel’s propaganda.

I do believe that Biden has made what he believes is the best possible effort to move Israel to a lasting ceasefire — not out of any compassion for Palestinians, but out of craven desire to neutralize the issue in our politics — but he has bungled it.

I do credit Biden with having played a pretty good hand in deterring escalation to a regional conflict. Reasonable people may read that as sacrificing Palestinians in Gaza. Reasonable people may also call that sacrifice the Least Worst option. I disagree with both reads.

But I do not fault the Harris / Walz campaign for trying to dodge the question. It would be both foolish and irresponsible for them to run explicitly against Biden on anything, much less foreign policy questions, much less Gaza.

I cannot fault the Democratic Party for not arguing against the majority of Dem voters’ support for Israel during a three-minute propaganda video produced to make their case to voters who pay precious little attention to politics but may watch a bit of the convention.

If I were in Harris’ shoes I would not criticize protestors against the attack on Gaza as she has, but I would otherwise avoid the question of Gaza as much as I possibly could during the campaign, just as she is doing. There is no upside to the Harris / Walz campaign standing up for Gaza even if the only thing that matters to you is Gaza. There is no version of that which actually deters Israel or helps Gaza. There is no version of that which does not hurt the Harris’ chances in the election, which risks an array of nightmarish results from a Trump presidency, including greater support for horrors in Gaza.

I confidently expect that Harris will not do as she should and stand up for Gaza on Wednesday 6 November. But I will save that criticism for when the day comes.

I hate the neoliberal Democratic party establishment as much as you do. I could spend all day on the faults of the Biden administration and the current state of the Democratic Party. They have brushed aside progressives who knew better. But do not misread the moment.

The Biden administration has delivered the strongest progressive policy package since LBJ despite weakness in Congress. The Harris campaign has already delivered the strongest progressive message of that same era. It’s not nearly good enough. But it is not nothing.

The neolib strain in the Party remains strong. Harris has been one of them for a long time. It seems all too likely that they will knife progressives again in 2025. But that hasn’t happened yet. This is the least punching left I have seen from the Party in decades.

Yes, capitalist liberalism has a long history of foolhardy alliances with fascism against the left. That is much too evident in our current condition. But at the moment, the Democratic Party is mostly joining hands with progressives rather than making that mistake right now. There are countless things wrong with the Party’s response to Israel’s attack on Gaza and to the crisis of democracy in the US. The Harris campaign avoiding the wedge issue of Gaza is not one of them.