"Israel Must Crush Palestinian Hopes"
A Contrarian Take On Achieving Mideast Peace
The consensus among major world leaders (as reiterated by President Joe Biden a few days ago) is that an independent Palestinian state is needed to deliver a lasting peace in the Mideast.
A two-state solution is the only way to guarantee the long-term security of both the Israeli and the Palestinian people.
— President Biden (@POTUS) November 26, 2023
To make sure Israelis and Palestinians alike can live in equal measures of freedom and dignity.
We will not give up on working toward this goal.
We've quoted Palestinian-American pundit Richard Hanania here before on affirmative action. In the X thread below, he turns his attention to the Mideast, where he offers a contrarian take: for there to be peace, Palestinian hopes for an independent state need to die.
There are three models you can have of Palestinian hate of Israelis
— Richard Hanania (@RichardHanania) November 27, 2023
1. Linear: Oppression goes up, hatred increases
2. Logarithmic: Same as 1 but rises more slowly after a certain level
3. "Lose Hope": It is hope of victory that inspires them.
Which is likely to be true here? pic.twitter.com/UNrtgVwlQH
For this conflict, Logarithmic and Lose Hope are superior models. There's very little to no evidence that Israelis being nicer to Palestinians will make them hate Israelis less. And the history of other conflicts shows that hatred actually can do down with more repression.
— Richard Hanania (@RichardHanania) November 27, 2023
People who think Palestinian hatred can get worse don't reflect too much on their culture.
— Richard Hanania (@RichardHanania) November 27, 2023
Palestinian hate of Israelis is an outlier. It's not like other conflicts
Yes, don't bring up Nazis. But really Palestinian militants deserve the honor, and they're if anything worse pic.twitter.com/wv3CdeuoTR
I don't think that Palestinian hate can be explained by current Israeli behavior. It's clearly religion and past grievances that no one can change today. If hatred is based on things no one can control, you can't hope to decrease it to any substantive degree. pic.twitter.com/LSqnd6YYvA
— Richard Hanania (@RichardHanania) November 27, 2023
Imagine you're in a town where the cops are always trying to lock you up for jaywalking, while letting murderers go free. It would be irrational to think you can get them to hate you less by not jaywalking. That's clearly a pretense. The same is true with anti-Israeli hate. pic.twitter.com/a1XTGRECRB
— Richard Hanania (@RichardHanania) November 27, 2023
Israel will not only fail to significantly increase Palestinian hate through this conflict. From a study of other conflicts there's good reason to think that crushing Palestinian hopes will actually reduce hatred.
— Richard Hanania (@RichardHanania) November 27, 2023
Take Muslim silence on the Uyghurs as instructive here. pic.twitter.com/Wgh7xrfQ1x
The Syrian Civil War is another good example here. A decade ago, Assad was a pariah in the Muslim world, which tried to overthrow him. After he killed enough people, they all went "oops, never mind" and now he's accepted again. No hope means no political cause. pic.twitter.com/INJDEqQPHJ
— Richard Hanania (@RichardHanania) November 27, 2023
The arguments here rely on facts that are commonly known. I think people making the Linear Model argument are either lying or have convinced themselves of something clearly irrational.
— Richard Hanania (@RichardHanania) November 27, 2023
When they say Israel can't win by force alone, what they mean is "we don't want them to." pic.twitter.com/fb7s0qpSGA
It's hard to imagine Palestinians giving up their political dreams now. But not much harder than imaging what Japan would eventually become after 1945.
— Richard Hanania (@RichardHanania) November 27, 2023
It wasn't the two atomic bombs that won the war. It was the knowledge there would a third, fourth, etc. pic.twitter.com/X7GG00XFJF
The US can help by continuing to support Israel, not pressuring it on supposed "human rights" grounds, and trying to find a way to transfer the population of Gaza to other locations. Destroying the cause of Palestine is a long term project, but this is the real way conflicts end
— Richard Hanania (@RichardHanania) November 27, 2023
Read the entire piece here. And subscribe for more on the war in the coming weeks, and what we can learn from the history of this and previous conflicts. https://t.co/q81Ny2PKGS
— Richard Hanania (@RichardHanania) November 27, 2023
Following Up On Our Last Post
In our last post (Trading Update: Which Signals Are The Strongest Now?), we wrote about which signals were the strongest now in predicting stock movements post-earnings.
Trading Update: Which Signals Are The Strongest?
— Portfolio Armor (@PortfolioArmor) November 28, 2023
What our latest data says.https://t.co/MaOGeLW55u
We mentioned that the average 5-day return of stocks in our database reporting earnings this quarter has been 4.75%, but stocks exhibiting extremely bullish (+3 on a scale from -3 to +3) options market sentiment had an average 5-day return of 15.49% (double-digit weekly returns can lead to triple-digit options trade returns).
Options market sentiment is extremely bullish on a stock reporting earnings after the close today. It's one of two stocks we have trades teed up for today. If you'd like a heads up when we place those trades, feel free to sign up for our trading Substack/occasional email list below.
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