ICJ orders Israel to prevent genocide in Gaza, stops short of ordering ceasefire

> The law of retaliation is a never-ending cycle

How many wars have the US and Japan fought after WWII?

Or France and Germany after WWII?

How many wars have the US Government and Native Americans fought after 1900?

Sometimes a clear, overwhelming victory ends cycles of violence.

Germany and Japan's peaceful modern history are less due to a clear, overwhelming victory than they were due to the recognition of an absolutely horrific chapter in their country's respective histories and a major cultural movement against the possibility of those kinds of atrocities happening again. Either country could easily come up with more than enough military might to win a war if they chose, but the horrors that they perpetrated live on as cultural scar tissue.

The last example is just... horrific. I don't have more to say on it except that we shouldn't use it as a positive example of anything.

The Marshall Plan and favorable trade agreements the allies gave Japan would never be extended by Israel the way it is and acts now, so there has to be another solution. Destruction didn't turn Germany and Japan around, the ability to uplift themselves did. The very thing which has been denied to Gaza since 2005 at least (and likely much longer)

The US Government continues to employ militarized forces to suppress Indigenous resistance to this very day.

>due to the recognition of an absolutely horrific chapter

You mean, the absolutely horrific military defeat.

That's exactly the point, at least how I'm reading it. Between the US and Japan peace and diplomacy was allowed to rule instead of constant violent retaliation. With France and Germany the same - the two countries have, in a pretty meaningful way, simply merged into a single country along with a lot of the rest of Europe.

When it comes to the US Government and Native Americans it's a far less good example - there have been militarized Native resistance groups at times since the 1900s and there has been open violence (see, for instance, Leonard Peltier and AIM)... in a large way America succeeded with erasing native peoples from their lands - and ditto with Canada - to the point where the groups are too fragmented to form any serious claims at independence. I also think Nixon (yes that Nixon) helped cool things off pretty seriously by, essentially, starting reparation programs to help reinject economic health into reservations - while those have had very underwhelming success at fully solving the problem America has been trying to uplift instead of suppress those communities.

All this stuff is really, really complicated - what defines a culture and a nation is extremely nebulous and subject to heavy revision as time passes. But we're all people and we need to be able to talk about peace even if we have deep historical wounds.

Yea, I think it's pretty odd how little awareness of tribal councils, discussions of self-governance, and resistance from Native Americans there is in the modern America but it feels like the US almost wants to forget it has reservations.

Once their WW2 militaries were utterly defeated and their leadership was forced into unconditional surrender, followed by Allied occupation and rebuilding.

> Marshall Plan and favorable trade agreements the allies gave Japan would never be extended by Israel the way it is and acts now

Between America and the oil-rich Gulf, I think we can figure it out.

The US has fought many wars since WW2 and has basically failed to win any of them. Again from the interview:

The second thing is a targeted response. Let's define realistic political objectives. And the third thing is a combined response. Because there is no effective use of force without a political strategy. We are not in 1973 or in 1967. There are things no army in the world knows how to do, which is to win in an asymmetrical battle against terrorists. The war on terror has never been won anywhere. And it instead triggers extremely dramatic misdeeds, cycles, and escalations. If America lost in Afghanistan, if America lost in Iraq, if we lost in the Sahel, it's because it's a battle that can't be won simply, it's not like you have a hammer that strikes a nail and the problem is solved. So we need to mobilize the international community, get out of this Western entrapment in which we are.

To say it more succinctly, Axis countries clearly had a lot to gain from peace (namely stable happy lives again) and nothing to gain from further violence.

Whereas you might say that many Palestinians (specifically the ones who joined Hamas) had little to gain from the status quo, and little to lose from violence. When you are born locked in the world's largest prison, becoming a terrorist might seem appealing.

That France and Germany are now good neighbors is a miracle.

It's possible because wise humans on both sides realized that the law of retaliation would cause a never ending cycle.

I worry that this sort of wisdom might be in short supply these days.

This is intentional. It is a piece of a type of cultural warfare that extends from residential schools to the naming of sports teams. It is the reason the US military uses names of tribal groups for machines of war. It is the reason popular media refers to indigenous people exclusively in the past tense.

Germany and Japan did not have anything in their constitutions advocating the destruction of the allies.

No. The fundamental flaw in this reasoning is the assumption that overwhelming victory is what established the current world order.

Rebuilding Europe via the Marshall plan, which involved humanization of individuals who fought on behalf of evil, is why there is peace in Europe. Likewise, the US reconstruction of Japan is why the US and Japan are at peace.

The US held the position of power and chose not to exercise it tyrannically. That is why there is peace.

The native American case is much closer to supporting your argument because genoicdal efforts were made against them and they were forced to submit, and then tyrannical power was exercised over them, maybe even to this day. However again, Native Americans participate in American civil society, there have been (probably insufficient) efforts for reparations, they do have land where they administer their own laws. In some locations native American heritage is celebrated and native American culture is promoted.

There is relative peace with native Americans because we are not particularly tyrannical, and I would say for the most part, modern Americans see Native Americans as humans not "savages."

Seeing your enemies as equally valid humans, who might have done things you would do if you grew up under their conditions, is what creates peace.

Peace is a function of humanization, not a function of victory. Victory without humanization does not end the cycle of violence.

> chapter in their country's respective histories and a major cultural movement against the possibility of those kinds of atrocities happening again

It's true that that's the case today. But it took a while for this transition to occur. Basically, the entire wartime generation had to retire/die out. In the 50s and 60s Germans were still very keen about downplaying the atrocities (even if they of course recognized that they occurred) and especially being very lenient towards war criminal and even protecting them from foreign governments (e.g. Heinrich Boere).

> That's exactly the point, at least how I'm reading it. Between the US and Japan peace and diplomacy was allowed to rule instead of constant violent retaliation.

What diplomacy? The US destroyed Japan's military, bombed Tokyo, Hiroshima, and Nagasaki (the latter two with nuclear weapons), killing hundreds of thousands of civilians. The Japanese surrendered unconditionally.

Then the US occupied Japan while directing the construction of a new Japanese government.

I don't see any diplomacy there.

Does it? I am open to believing this, but I have not heard it. Can you link to examples?

No, I mean the slaughter of millions of innocent civilians.

There are a variety of examples but the most recent ones relate to high profile pipeline protests. These protests have by and large been about and on land that was illegally annexed. These lands are by and large guaranteed by treaties that have since been illegally broken. Militarized forces from private security forces to federal agencies have been involved in the suppression.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dakota_Access_Pipeline_protest...

Less recent examples include the violence surrounding the AIM movement in the early 60s and 70s. Protesters have been unjustly imprisoned for decades. There was violence from federal agencies on multiple occasions throughout the time period when AIM was most unified and active.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Indian_Movement

Shockingly to many people forced sterilization continued well into the 70s as well, which fits the definition of attempted genocide.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sterilization_of_Native_Americ...

There are more examples but these are the most documented and high profile.

It is a social war more than a material one. Residential school policy is an example of this. You may have heard the phrase "kill the indian, save the man". This is a policy of longterm cultural genocide and erasure.

Edit: I also forgot to mention another example which is the passive acceptance of the very high rates of missing and murdered indigenous women. The lack of investigation from federal authorities who are supposed to have jurisdiction over these things implies tacit acceptance of the systematic murder of vulnerable indigenous people.

https://mmiwusa.org/

But overwhelming victory and unconditional surrender were the foundations for that reconstruction. There is really no way that peace could have been achieved with WWII Germany and Japan through giving money or diplomacy (Neville Chamberlain says hi). Once there was overwhelming victory resulting in unconditional surrender, then the rebuilding process started.

EDIT:

In addition, there was no equivalent of the Marshall Plan between the Soviet Union and East Germany, yet there were not wars between them after WWII.

> I don't see any diplomacy there.

Agree. The diplomacy that mattered happened aboard the USS Missouri with Japan's unconditional surrender.

Prior to that was a campaign of utter destruction. 80,000 people died in the firebombing of Tokyo alone.

> That France and Germany are now good neighbors is a miracle.

It was not because of wise humans as if humans suddenly learned wisdom. It was because they both realized instead of being empires acquiring territory, they had instead been turned into players between the US and the Soviet Union who were both much stronger than either of them and that war would end up completely devastating both of them without any benefits.

The diplomacy consists of the fact the Japanese were allowed to rebuild their own country. They weren’t forcibly relocated to Hokkaido to make room for US settlers.

Cynicism may sometimes seem smart, in this case it leads you to stupid conclusions.

While another war between France and Germany would have been unlikely for the reasons you state, it absolutely wasn't a given that the countries would develop cordial relations given their shared history. I call that a miracle. It's something we owe to de Gaulle, Giscard d'Estaing, Helmut Schmidt, François Mitterrand, Helmut Kohl and others -- others in their place may very well have chosen a different path.

History is full of examples of countries being hostile to each other even though cooperation might be beneficial in the long run. In fact, it's probably true for the Israel/Palestine war as well.

It’s happening in Canada too

Both countries were previously led by extremists totally incapable of any such moral epiphany. Sound familiar?

Arguably Canada is worse about it than the US but I didnt feel like it was germane to the specific context of the current conversation. Regardless, the brutality and militant nature of the numerous blockade-busting and protest crushing actions undertaken by the RCMP and other groups in Canada cannot be understated.

And the diplomacy also consisted of the fact that in revenge for their defeat the Japanese didn't launch a long campaign of violent resistance. The cycle of violence continues as long as people seek revenge and at some point somebody has to be the kinder soul and concede or compromise on the horrors of the past. It's an action that requires participation from both sides but will always place stronger demands on one of them.

This is why I have hope in the middle east - Hamas are fueled by revenge and (IMO) the current Israeli government is also driven by revenge... but the majority of people on both sides have had enough. On the Palestinian side the populace has been denied an election for decades and on the Israeli side there is strong opposition to Netanyahu but terror remains a strong motivator.

Japan was not allowed to have a military for decades after the US occupation ended in 1952. The constitution of Japan, written during US occupation, explicitly makes war illegal! Japan still depends on the US for defense and hosts US military bases.

If Japan isn't an example of brutal war solving problems then nothing is.

> The majority of people on both sides have had enough. On the Palestinian side the populace has been denied an election for decades and on the Israeli side there is strong opposition to Netanyahu but terror remains a strong motivator.

Complete nonsense. The majority of Palestinians support Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and prefer escalation. There hasn't been an election in the West Bank since 2021. Do you know why? Everyone knows Hamas would win! So Abbas, the moderate, indefinitely postponed elections.

The Marshall plan was only enacted after Germany and Japan had been reduced to rubble, had millions of their civilian population killed through indiscriminate bombing, including the use of two atom bombs, occupied, submit to total surrender, the entirety of their command structure executed, and their governments dismantled and replaced by the Allies.

I think you are skipping over quite a bit of human bloodshed and strife to get to the Marshall Plan.

A few things emerged after WWII that probably helped keep the peace:

* democracy

* capitalism

* US military presence

* common European allies

* a shared dislike of communism

* a need to focus internally to rebuild destroyed infrastructure

Which they only acknowledged because they lost. Horribly.

To add on to that, there wasn’t an immediate rehabilitation. Many, many terrible things happened after the war that are kinda buried in history. See for example: https://www.haaretz.com/2015-12-15/ty-article/.premium/movie...