This was your original claim. Taking both of these statements together, the meaning of your second sentence is "most Israelis think the government's terrible actions towards Palestinians, like murder and kidnapping of innocents, are unacceptable." The point of my post was to show that, to the contrary, the majority of Israelis tolerate the government's terrible actions towards Palestinians. My evidence for this claim was a recent poll which showed that, when asked about the dominant expression of Israeli cruelty towards Palestinians today,
four percent of the dominant cultural group thought this expression of cruelty went too far. Four percent. You were statistically more likely to be a
millionaire in the United States than an Israeli who thought the Gaza war is going too far, and that war went (and is going)
beyond too far in its destruction and malice. I assume you agree on that "beyond too far" part, at least – if you don't, that would explain your reaction to my post, and that opens up a separate discussion.
But anyway, assuming we're on the same page about the war:
Why did I say all this?
Because, in the face of evidence that strong, the counterpoints you made in response strike me as tangential and minor. Saying that the results could be different if they asked "Did all war-related decisions made by the government go too far?" versus "Is the military response going too far?," looks out of touch. Even
if that's a valid bone of contention–I think it's semantic quibbling to the vast majority of respondents–it's not going to change the percent of war objectors from
four to twenty. And twenty would still be a clear minority.
Relatedly, quick research suggests that non-Arab Israeli support for a ceasefire is primarily unrelated to the point of our conversation, the cruelty against Palestinians and whether Israelis support that cruelty. (Given my original poll was conducted in March-April, it would be unexpected if cruelty was the primary reason this group supported a ceasefire – if opposition to the war's cruelty hung
that low for six months after the war started, and then opposition to cruelty
spiked ten times over in a handful of months to become mainstream). Instead, the ceasefire support is
primarily about
returning the hostages, it seems. Even then, with the intense incentive of returning national citizen hostages from a war enemy, only a 60% majority advocated for a ceasefire per the second linked (
June) article. Unlike the percent of non-Arab Israelis who supported the government's actions in the war (or thought they should go farther), that 60% is not overwhelming.
Also from the June article – more than 20% of Jewish Israelis wanted Israel to actively
conquer the
entire Gaza Strip. If this
extreme hardline position has 20% of the dominant cultural group's support, and only a 60% majority supports a ceasefire when national hostages are on the line, one can assume the median non-Arab position does not intrinsically object to the war's cruelty towards Palestinians.
This post took me about an hour to write, which was frustrating because your post struck me as so tangential and so easy to write, leaving me a lot of work to sift through the pieces and present a compelling counter, not missing the forest to get stuck in the semi-plausible vaguely-relevant trees you left. If you respond to this and I see a similar situation arise, I will probably not respond again.
