Much better to believe that we all want peace and that there is some sort of negotiated solution possible without so much violence. But it is crystal clear that it is a fantasy, even if it wasn’t quite as clear many decades ago.” –neo

This^^^.

It was clear decades ago, BTW. But this is an old problem, deeply rooted in human nature.

I’m old enough to remember, back during the Cold War, when well-meaning, naive liberals reflexively blamed the United States in ever confrontation, direct or not, with the USSR. I was very young at the time, not yet an adult, but even I could see that reality didn’t match their words.

(I can remember listening to President Carter addressing the country and actually being amazed at his naivete. When a President has junior-high-age kids thinking he is an unworldly naif, he has a major PR issue going on. When those kids are _correct_, as I was at the time, a potential disaster is unfolding.)

Eventually I realized that part of it was sheer _desperation_ on the part of the naive ones. They hated what was happening, they were genuinely afraid of how it could all go wrong, but if the USA was at fault, then they could at least potentially change things by forcing policy changes. If the USSR was the aggressor, they were _powerless_ to change anything.

Which of course they were. The only net affect of all their efforts was to empower the enemy, in reality.

But nobody likes the feeling of helplessness. Everybody wants to believe there’s something you can _do_ . Sometimes there is, but life is full of situations where there’s just nothing. Someone I know is currently suffering from the final stages of stage four cancer. His doctors have told him that it’s more or less a matter of time, and every one of his friends and family are in that state of helplessness. It’s a loathsome feeling.

Admitting that Islamism is what it is carries that same feeling of helplessness, where all the potential responses are horrible, and so is doing nothing. It’s terribly, terribly tempting to indulge in quack solutions that give an illusion of control, whether it’s a quack cancer cure or ‘international law’.

Of course there are other motivations too. One of them is sheer inertia. A _lot_ of people and groups have been working away at the ‘two state solution’ for decades, and they’re professionally and emotionally invested in it. They don’t want to to have wasted all that time and money and energy, and it’s all they have, so they reflexively support it.

Bob goes to various sites to spread bs. Been going on for years. Encounter him at cdr salamander and instapundit.

Bob you ran through the CCP money that fast?

This is all very interesting to me. My primary focus as a military historian-slash-military affairs writer is the complex interaction between technology and tactics and how that interaction manifests on the battlefield. That interaction is quite protean in nature.

Do you make use of parallels between tactical studies and microbiology? Antibiotic resistance suggests itself as an interesting (if rather painfully obvious) parallel.

As to the subject matter of the parent post: part of me is somewhat leaning toward being in favor of having an actual “Palestinian state,” only because if the wickedness can thus be concentrated into a certain defined area, it can be dealt with more easily in certain respects. But I note that my questions from a few weeks ago about what exactly this “Palestinian state” is to consist of remain open in my mind.

Some maybe, but not all.
https://notthebee.com/article/you-could-have-prevented-this-ilhan-omar-tells-ucla-chancellor-that-anonymous-group-who-played-october-7th-footage-outside-of-encampment-shouldve-been-stopped

Showing footage of a terrorist attack that was executed by the Palestinians to a group of pro-Palestinians is now controversial.

You know, with it being Ilham Omar, maybe it would have pleased her delicate sensibilities if the video board just said, “Some people did something.”

Is that something our apparat should be concerned with