Re: Normalizing hatred

On 2025-03-18 2:21 PM, Adam H. Kerman wrote:

Rhino <no_offline_contact@example.com> wrote:
 

. . .

 

But there is hope. After all, the Germans are absolutely NOT Nazis any
more and haven't been in a long time, even if some of the people raised
as Nazis are still among us: the Nazis were sidelined and other views
became the mainstream. Ditto for Japan which clearly was changed from
the course they were on in WW2. We need to learn from what the Allies
did after WW2 in Japan and Germany to change the attitudes of the Axis
countries. If we can apply those lessons again, maybe the Palestinians
can be reformed....

 Despite centuries of hatred among Europeans and murderous attitudes
toward Jews, Germany was part of the West.
 Japan modernized itself by adopting Western values, despite the huge
setback that was the military attempt to take over the Pacific rim.
 The Arabs helped spread Hellenic civilization and then brought back some
ancient knowledge that countered Europe's Dark Ages. The Arabs of
centuries past were far more Westernized than they are today.

Exactly. As intractable as some of our problems seem, we always have to remember that the world wasn't always this way and will certainly not stay the way it is. Things change, sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly, sometimes subtly, sometimes dramatically. (As recently as January 1989, the East German leader declared that the Berlin Wall would be standing for many more years to come; most Germans - East and West - were very skeptical about it disappearing any time soon. But in November that same year, it was being dismantled.) We *could* find that things change in a favourable way fairly suddenly. Or they could go even further to shit.
I never would have imagined the Abraham Accords yet they happened and other countries, especially Saudi Arabia, seem to be poised to join it. If the woman in the video was right and the whole Palestinian situation is driven by all the other Arabs who want the Palestinians constantly trying to sap Israel, it seems reasonable to me that if the other Arabs are having a fundamental change of approach and are now open to living with Israel rather than destroying it - as the Abraham Accords suggest - then they might very well dial back the whole Palestinian cause. (I don't expect they will drop it entirely, at least in public, because I imagine the average Achmed in the street may insist on keeping up the animosity to Israel because that's all he's ever known but the leaders of the Arab countries may have decided its in their best interests to accept Israel.) That could finally be the deal-changer that we need.
--
Rhino