Bukele's signature move was imprisoning gang members. There are currently ~105,000 prisoners in El Salvador, ~3% of all men. Gaza + West Bank has a similar population (5M) to El Salvador (6.3M). Before the current war Israel held less than 5,000 Palestinians. The equivalent under the "Bukele method" would be more than 80,000 prisoners!
Terrorists are similar to gang members that they don't wear uniforms but everyone in town knows who's involved. Ostensibly there are some 20,000 Hamas/PIJ/etc. fighters still alive in Gaza and another few tens of thousands in the West Bank.
Gang members in El Salvador do in fact wear uniforms; they have tattoos on their faces. More to the point, the crucial factor there is that the gang members in El Salvador had become very unpopular and Bukele was able to conduct his crackdown with minimal opposition, even from family members. In more normal circumstances, crackdowns quickly provoke substantial opposition because while people are positive about cracking down on gangs in theory, they are not supportive of their nephew who is a goodboi and just fell in with a bad crowd and is gonna turn his life aroun and go to college getting pulled aside by cops and beaten up. What the El Salvador example really shows is that sometimes you do have to let a cancer get out of control before you can cut it out. Something similar happened with the mafia in the US though on less of a grand scale.
The pertinence to Gaza is not very obvious. Unlike the gangs in El Salvador, Hamas are quite popular in Gaza. If the supposed parallel is how easy it is to ignore international opinion, most normies look at a country where murder and crime has been more than halved and think that indefinitely imprisoning hoodlums with tattoos on their faces is more than worth it. Critics are embarrassed to raise their voice. Most people will not think the security benefits to Israel justify expelling the population of Gaza, even if these security benefits are real.
You got me Baruch. The fact that Bukele could successfully eliminate MS-13 against some international opposition, means that any country can do anything at all against any amount of international opposition. Clearly this isn't motivated reasoning at all.
The fact that a leader can emerge in a small country completely owned by its oligarchy and run as a satrapy of the GAE and quickly establish sovereignty in the face of massive internal and external opposition means that it can be done. The Maras were not even a key obstacle, more of a useful foil.
There are obviously endless differences between El Salvador and Israel, as there are between any two countries. So what? If anything, these differences are in our favor. With all respect to the Salvadoreans, they have not historically distinguished themselves as particularly talented, nor as revolutionaries.
Baruch, it would help if you didn't dismiss observations as insults. Legitimate observations should be acknowledged. They advance the conversation. The key difference in this case was desperation. El Salvadorans were desperate for change.
You are, hence your desperate need for a messiah who'll come in and clean up the mess.
Most Israelis aren't.
Here's an article by Chris Brunet, the best journalist in the Americas (he's Canadian) about El Salvador:
You're making the point that leaders need followers and between the two is a give-and-take. This is not a slam, far from it: It's so obvious that it needed pointing out. Thank you for doing so.
Unlike El Salvador, which nobody really gives a sh*t about and consequently can basically do whatever it wants, people pay close attention to Israel and the Palestinians have powerful supporters.
Could Israel implement a “Bukele solution” without becoming a pariah state? I don’t know, but I think the risk is a lot higher than you seem to.
What does "pariah state" mean in a world where China is still a de facto tolerated member of the "international community", and where Russia is still able to grind on in its years-long war against Ukraine despite crippling sanctions?
It means what happened to South Africa: de facto embargo, capital controls, talented people leaving, a self-reinforcing doom loop.
As for China and Russia, surely you’re not so naive as to think the same rules apply to continent-sized superpowers as to a tiny desert strip with 10m residents.
What happened to South Africa ended 30 years ago, when the GAE was at the heigh of its power. I think Israelis have learned a lesson "don't be a pariah state" that no longer applies. In ten years the ability of the US to project power will be limited to direct military intervention and that ability will be limited by the fear of empowering the chuds.
I'm American, too. Is this a credentials competition?
I'm not talking about 10 years, I'm talking about now. Pay attention to what's happening and not what you want to happen. I don't like this. I hate it. But it's happening.
As usual, a brilliant critique of what's wrong. It's also not a crazy idea; it's possible. An Israeli Bukele isn't out of the question.
But if I may, your segue to Bukele confused me. First you talked about how you don't win wars, then you abruptly switched gears to talk about politics.
Perhaps you meant to imply that an Israeli Bukele would know what to do with Gaza.
What would winning in Gaza consist of? Be realistic. More whining about how "the Arabs won't take in Palestinian refugees!" won't hack it.
Multiple possibilities for Gaza. One is just continued pressure while facilitating outflow. They're already paying for the privilege of being smuggled into Egypt. Why not Turkey? Why not Libya? I hear Sudan is lovely this time of year...
"Thirty years ago, Ayatollah Khomeini proclaimed equity and social justice as the Revolution’s main objective. His successor, Ayatollah Khamene’i, continues to refer to social justice as the Revolution’s defining theme. Similarly, Presidents Khatami and Ahmadinejad, though they are from very different political persuasions, placed heavy emphasis on social justice in their political rhetoric."
Right and left don't matter aren't quite applicable here. The Iran revolution was successful - tell us oh Prophet Baruch, what was it about Iran that made it succeed? Cut the snark and deal with the question.
(It’s dismaying to have to tell youse that you need lawyers. But the 21st century is all about reducing expectations).
See what you need is like the Federalist Society.
So you’ll need some Jesuits, just make sure they say they’re Franciscan. As in Franciscan University. Casuistry should come… er… ah… naturally.
Then your Federalist Society , er, starts clerking for these old pervs… er.. clerking, yeah.
That’s the brains.
Now to the muscle.
Find some Cuban Israelis…
Wherever the Palm Beach of Israel is, send the Israeli Male Clerks to poolside to give the old duffers a hand, er, write position papers. Then over decades, one of the Birthing Clerk lawyers becomes Supremo Judge and wola out pops the Israeli Dobbs decision.
This sounds crazy but it worked.
So you need the Israeli Catholics as the brains and future Supreme Court, and the Baptist Israelis as the brawn. The Cuban Israelis give a hand at the pool. See Marco Rubio.
Bukele's signature move was imprisoning gang members. There are currently ~105,000 prisoners in El Salvador, ~3% of all men. Gaza + West Bank has a similar population (5M) to El Salvador (6.3M). Before the current war Israel held less than 5,000 Palestinians. The equivalent under the "Bukele method" would be more than 80,000 prisoners!
Terrorists are similar to gang members that they don't wear uniforms but everyone in town knows who's involved. Ostensibly there are some 20,000 Hamas/PIJ/etc. fighters still alive in Gaza and another few tens of thousands in the West Bank.
Gang members in El Salvador do in fact wear uniforms; they have tattoos on their faces. More to the point, the crucial factor there is that the gang members in El Salvador had become very unpopular and Bukele was able to conduct his crackdown with minimal opposition, even from family members. In more normal circumstances, crackdowns quickly provoke substantial opposition because while people are positive about cracking down on gangs in theory, they are not supportive of their nephew who is a goodboi and just fell in with a bad crowd and is gonna turn his life aroun and go to college getting pulled aside by cops and beaten up. What the El Salvador example really shows is that sometimes you do have to let a cancer get out of control before you can cut it out. Something similar happened with the mafia in the US though on less of a grand scale.
The pertinence to Gaza is not very obvious. Unlike the gangs in El Salvador, Hamas are quite popular in Gaza. If the supposed parallel is how easy it is to ignore international opinion, most normies look at a country where murder and crime has been more than halved and think that indefinitely imprisoning hoodlums with tattoos on their faces is more than worth it. Critics are embarrassed to raise their voice. Most people will not think the security benefits to Israel justify expelling the population of Gaza, even if these security benefits are real.
another crucial distinction is that in El Salvador they speak Spanish, while in Israel, Hebrew and Arabic are the vernacular
You got me Baruch. The fact that Bukele could successfully eliminate MS-13 against some international opposition, means that any country can do anything at all against any amount of international opposition. Clearly this isn't motivated reasoning at all.
The fact that a leader can emerge in a small country completely owned by its oligarchy and run as a satrapy of the GAE and quickly establish sovereignty in the face of massive internal and external opposition means that it can be done. The Maras were not even a key obstacle, more of a useful foil.
There are obviously endless differences between El Salvador and Israel, as there are between any two countries. So what? If anything, these differences are in our favor. With all respect to the Salvadoreans, they have not historically distinguished themselves as particularly talented, nor as revolutionaries.
Baruch, it would help if you didn't dismiss observations as insults. Legitimate observations should be acknowledged. They advance the conversation. The key difference in this case was desperation. El Salvadorans were desperate for change.
You are, hence your desperate need for a messiah who'll come in and clean up the mess.
Most Israelis aren't.
Here's an article by Chris Brunet, the best journalist in the Americas (he's Canadian) about El Salvador:
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/ashes-of-apathy-in-el-salvador/
You're making the point that leaders need followers and between the two is a give-and-take. This is not a slam, far from it: It's so obvious that it needed pointing out. Thank you for doing so.
The Prophet Baruch wins the Internet today…
😂 the greatest Palestinian leader of all time, President Nayib Bukele.😂😂😂
Unlike El Salvador, which nobody really gives a sh*t about and consequently can basically do whatever it wants, people pay close attention to Israel and the Palestinians have powerful supporters.
Could Israel implement a “Bukele solution” without becoming a pariah state? I don’t know, but I think the risk is a lot higher than you seem to.
What does "pariah state" mean in a world where China is still a de facto tolerated member of the "international community", and where Russia is still able to grind on in its years-long war against Ukraine despite crippling sanctions?
It means what happened to South Africa: de facto embargo, capital controls, talented people leaving, a self-reinforcing doom loop.
As for China and Russia, surely you’re not so naive as to think the same rules apply to continent-sized superpowers as to a tiny desert strip with 10m residents.
What happened to South Africa ended 30 years ago, when the GAE was at the heigh of its power. I think Israelis have learned a lesson "don't be a pariah state" that no longer applies. In ten years the ability of the US to project power will be limited to direct military intervention and that ability will be limited by the fear of empowering the chuds.
Dream on. The US is still a massively powerful country and if it decided to, it could crush Israel.
I'm American and I don't think in ten years we will realistically be able to do it.
I'm American, too. Is this a credentials competition?
I'm not talking about 10 years, I'm talking about now. Pay attention to what's happening and not what you want to happen. I don't like this. I hate it. But it's happening.
😂😂😂 the greatest Palestinian leader of all time, President Nayib Bukele.😂😂😂
Being smarter than the Salvadorians doesn't work to our advantage.
Smart people are generally more GAE, and during the pandemic, Israel proved to be the GAE-est country.
As usual, a brilliant critique of what's wrong. It's also not a crazy idea; it's possible. An Israeli Bukele isn't out of the question.
But if I may, your segue to Bukele confused me. First you talked about how you don't win wars, then you abruptly switched gears to talk about politics.
Perhaps you meant to imply that an Israeli Bukele would know what to do with Gaza.
What would winning in Gaza consist of? Be realistic. More whining about how "the Arabs won't take in Palestinian refugees!" won't hack it.
Multiple possibilities for Gaza. One is just continued pressure while facilitating outflow. They're already paying for the privilege of being smuggled into Egypt. Why not Turkey? Why not Libya? I hear Sudan is lovely this time of year...
"All previous attempts to overthrow the modern managerial state from the right had failed."
I mean, Iran succeeded
The Iranian revolution was about as right wing as ISIS
Is the Iranian State not right wing, or just the revolution?
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/the-ayatollah-and-the-transsexual-21867.html
"Thirty years ago, Ayatollah Khomeini proclaimed equity and social justice as the Revolution’s main objective. His successor, Ayatollah Khamene’i, continues to refer to social justice as the Revolution’s defining theme. Similarly, Presidents Khatami and Ahmadinejad, though they are from very different political persuasions, placed heavy emphasis on social justice in their political rhetoric."
Whoa, BASED and GAYPILLED!
https://www.brookings.edu/articles/iran-poverty-and-inequality-since-the-revolution/
Right and left don't matter aren't quite applicable here. The Iran revolution was successful - tell us oh Prophet Baruch, what was it about Iran that made it succeed? Cut the snark and deal with the question.
Well, ISIS is rather right wing as the term is commonly understood.
Yeah, and Dems are the real racists.
Don't you ever get tired of kicking at the football, Charlie Brown?
They’re all too old too.
You need an Octavian.
Wait I know what you need.
You need the Courts .
It’s a long game.
Stop thinking Short.
Especially stop borrowing long to gain short…
(It’s dismaying to have to tell youse that you need lawyers. But the 21st century is all about reducing expectations).
See what you need is like the Federalist Society.
So you’ll need some Jesuits, just make sure they say they’re Franciscan. As in Franciscan University. Casuistry should come… er… ah… naturally.
Then your Federalist Society , er, starts clerking for these old pervs… er.. clerking, yeah.
That’s the brains.
Now to the muscle.
Find some Cuban Israelis…
Wherever the Palm Beach of Israel is, send the Israeli Male Clerks to poolside to give the old duffers a hand, er, write position papers. Then over decades, one of the Birthing Clerk lawyers becomes Supremo Judge and wola out pops the Israeli Dobbs decision.
This sounds crazy but it worked.
So you need the Israeli Catholics as the brains and future Supreme Court, and the Baptist Israelis as the brawn. The Cuban Israelis give a hand at the pool. See Marco Rubio.