this post was submitted on 03 Nov 2024
112 points (78.3% liked)
Asklemmy
43879 readers
1457 users here now
A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions
If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!
- Open-ended question
- Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
- Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
- Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
- An actual topic of discussion
Looking for support?
Looking for a community?
- Lemmyverse: community search
- sub.rehab: maps old subreddits to fediverse options, marks official as such
- !lemmy411@lemmy.ca: a community for finding communities
~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_A@discuss.tchncs.de~
founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
The mental model here is "violence and diplomacy are mutually exclusive". In fact, they're very closely connected, almost synonymous.
Agree here. I grew up in violence and lived through the peace process. It starts out violent, and you win concessions by showing strength, and then negotiate peace. That worked in Ireland in 1998 and almost worked in Palestine in 2000. Violence is the first part of the diplomacy.
You're saying that the weak should go to the negotiating table empty-handed, but that won't solve anything for them. They need to stop being weak and start being strong, then diplomacy can start to happen.
The solution to weakness is strength. How can the weak become strong without the Armalite?
The Catholics took up arms in 1968 and came to the negotiating table in 1998. We won some concessions because we showed strength for 31 years, not "empathy". Yasser Arafat understood this: he knew when to use violence and when to negotiate. If you defang yourself as Step One, you make diplomacy impossible.
I admire your values, but you're incorrectly equating "empathy and diplomacy". Diplomacy is more a military matter; empathy has no place in realpolitik.