For folks curious about today's Canuck news:
Last fall, Trudeau issued 28.5 million in new permits for military exports to Israel, for classes of material ranging from bombs to vehicle components to electronic equipment and monitoring systems. Canadian parts also get shipped to the US to complete equipment sent by them.
This was a huge uptick for related spending, and it upset Canadians who've in the past protested Trudeau for supplying Saudi Arabia against Yemen. 1/2
So Canada's decision to block new military funding to Israel isn't an empty gesture; it's responding to a discourse that has not only been going for the last few months, but also for the last few decades.
Canadians tend to be raised on the belief that our legacy is as "peacekeepers", and the bravery of one of us against Rwandan genocide also keeps that myth alive.
But the country has also been part of the world's military actions, too - so there's a longstanding fight over identity here. 2/2
@MLClark I too was unhappy we supplied military hardware to Saudi Arabia; it's a repressive dictatorial/theocratic regime w/ a catastrophically bad human rights record, a toxic state ideology (to the point one could easily argued their principles are the antithesis of ours), & a long history of covertly sponsoring terrorism.
By contrast Israel has a fairly robust democracy, a decent human rights record (certainly no worse than ours), & an ideological base fairly compatible with pluralism...
@MLClark Suffice to say it doesn't appear to me supplying military materiel to the Saudis in any way serves the interests of world peace... especially not if our goal is a pluralistic, tolerant global society.
I do think supplying military materiel to the Israelis, on the other hand, could serve world peace - their current opponent is, after all, an explicitly genocidal terrorist group...
But I'm a tad less idealistic than most in this area - & recognize sometimes victory is needed for peace.
I don't think anything that's happening in Israel under its current far-right government serves peace--and I say that as someone who reads local Israeli news every day.
I also lived through another era where people acted like mass war campaigns wouldn't just radicalize the rest and create new extremists. We saw Taliban scatter and return.
The "total victory" BS from the 2000s echoes in this war. Nobody will "win". We're just enduring atrocity until enough are tired of it again.
Torin, I'm not talking about the government after Oct 7. I've been writing about Netanyahu's far-right coalition before that, and I've written explainers about the complex history of Israel's democracy.
Netanyahu faced three corruption trials going into 2023, and alarmed locals in December 2022, because he held on to his mandate through the most extreme right-wing coalition in Israeli history. Then he went after the Supreme Court, and sparked *months* of local protests--
--which led to the news today of Israel losing its "liberal democratic" standing for the first time in 50 years.
Netanyahu has been *fiercely* opposed by locals, including a strong opposition leader who nonetheless emphasized the importance of unity during wartime.
But I've been writing for a while now about the democracy that Westerners claim to be supporting.
Netanyahu *is not Israel*, and Israelis have been in a struggle for the future of their country internally as well.
@MLClark The threat existed before Oct. 7; among other things, the rocket attacks would've kept that in the public consciousness... which I believe made Israel more vulnerable to right-wing influence from the get-go.
Combine that with a growing far-right globally (no doubt driven partly by rising anxieties about the future, online echo chambers / radicalization pipelines given huge reach by social media companies, & vast amounts of dark money) & perhaps in hindsight the outcome is unsurprising.
That "belief" doesn't quite jive with regional history, where the Likud Party has played a strong role in exacerbating tensions for decades. Labor Zionism declined after its PM was assassinated by a right-wing Israeli.
But the key point I'm trying to make is that Westerners generally don't know much about the democracy they're vaguely upholding. Israel and Palestine are abstract stories in online chatter, instead of places where real humans are trying to survive amid extremists.
That's also why there's not much point to these conversations. They just become performances of allegiance that at best trade in dehumanizing certain populations, and at worst demonstrate ignorance of *all* populations involved.
Israelis are in the middle of an internal discourse about their future, while their government wages a war on multiple fronts, and while Palestinians suffer and die.
It's not a good topic for idle online chatter. It's just a cruel mess for all involved.
@MLClark You have a good point.
And I should be especially careful around such topics, as my inherently rather cold way of looking at the world is particularly apt to follow paths and yield conclusions that more sensitive individuals may find... well, without putting too fine a point on it, rather unpleasant.
Perhaps more worth discussing are the aspects of Western society's politics, ideology, behaviour, et cetera that the discourse surrounding the war has highlighted.
That's been the bread-and-butter of pretty much every article I wrote about Israel in the last year - including a four-part series called "Israel and the West".
I've written often in the last few months about wartime mentalities, too. (I think my most recent was a few weeks back in my newsletter?)
Western ignorance of Israel as an actual state is a huge bugbear in part because many support Israel solely because it fits Christian eschatology. It's "polite" anti-Semitism at best.
@MLClark You did a great job on those articles, too!
One thing I've found particularly strange is the extent to which many on the Western left, while claiming to cherish human rights, have defended/celebrated intentional atrocities by Hamas - from beheadings of Israeli civilians to mass rape & more.
I could understand/expect that from the far-right, given their outspoken proclivity for hatred/bloodlust...
But seeing it on the left... seems to say something about the nature of *all* ideology.
@MLClark It seems to me that in many cases and for many people, ideology is merely a veneer around emotion; that many people's ideologies are simply assembled out of whatever beliefs currently rationalize whatever their emotions dictate...
That the emotions themselves are what determine behaviour & rhetoric, not earnest belief in ideals - even if the individual fully believes their actions are driven by principle.
In which case high-minded ideals are just a persuasive tool, not something real.
Risk-aversion is an extremely common human trait, which spans people of every stripe. This small-c conservatism inclines us to support what is familiar over what is challenging and nuanced.
So if a risk-averse person grows up in a "liberal" or "leftist" household, they're still going to wave that banner only because it's familiar: not necessarily because they've considered their views carefully. (Ditto with right-wingers.)
Our tribalism is high right now. A very dangerous time.
@MLClark For me, I feel like risk-aversion was a catalyst for the opposite: a complete switch of my political views away from those I was raised with...
As I see it, advocating for policies that could negatively affect society (&/or one's own status) or an ideology that espouses such policies is itself a significant risk.
If my experience is any indication, perhaps risk-aversion may only encourage / lead to blind flag-waving when combined with (an)other personality cofactor(s)?
That's a higher level of risk assessment than what's addressed with the behavioural trait. If you were more behaviourally risk averse, you wouldn't be comfortable entertaining dissenting points of view in the first place, to be able to make such higher-level choices.
I grew up in a conservative household, but life experiences gave me to learn to hold ideas in tension, and that ability moved me toward different politics. But the key is first being open to considering other ideas.
@MLClark Ouch. I can't honestly say I can view that type of risk aversion as a legitimate trait - I see it as a severe psychological defect; an inherent unwillingness or inability to assess alternative points of view creates a functional inability to make informed choices...
Exploring the consequences of that raises some very, very sensitive ethical questions... regarding matters such as mental competence and societal responsibility.
Not to mention practical dilemmas.
Behavioural traits are well-studied. The "Big Five" model is common, with risk aversion studies extending from the "openness to experience" vector.
It's not surprising for a group species to be risk-averse, and highly deferential to perceived authority. It's excellent for group bonding. (Although bonobos just use more sex, so we lost the lottery there!)
Anyway, there's a wealth of lit about the parts that raise your concerns. Canetti's Crowds and Power might be a great start.
This is has been a good chat, Torin; I appreciate that you come sincerely to your exploration of many supremely important questions about the world we live in, and what we can expect of ourselves and others in it.
I hope you have a rad night. (Oh! And again: I still highly recommend Peter Watts' Blindsight for a thorough dismantling of casual notions of consciousness. I think you'll love it.)
Off to bed myself, but all the best to you - wherever the workweek finds you!
@MLClark Agreed - thanks, M.L.!
I hope you have a great night, and a good week, too; sleep well!
Oh, and thanks for the recommendation/reminder - I almost forgot about Blindsight, which would've been a terrible shame because the premise sounds like a recipe for an absolutely riveting book.
@MLClark Their current government's far-right bent is disturbing, I'll grant that.
It is, however, somewhat understandable; people tend to skew right (& warm to militaristic ideals/groups) when faced by hostile actors who preach the complete annihilation of their people. Especially when that kind of thing has been tried before.
I'm not entirely convinced the situations are analogous; for one, it seems the level of radicalization in the Gaza Strip has been extreme for a very long time.