Apparition of Jack

I think something like this is far more humane and achievable

Wouldn’t it be funny if AI becomes aware and turns on the tech billionaires instead

I doubt it. But modern Britain (as well as every first-world country) will be a lot more multicultural in the future moving forward. That’s what happens when there’s a global inequality. Poor people move to the uber-wealthy countries. Nature abhors and imbalance.

Israel will go down in history and biggest geopolitical fuckup of all time.

Maybe not all but a big number of them certainly feel nervous.

This is what I’m saying. Jewish paranoia runs deep. I’m going to be very honest - in many ways, I believe the best Arab response to the conflict (other than advocating for their own sovereignty) would be to find it within themselves to forgive Israelis for what they’ve done and work within legitimate frameworks to advocate for a one-state solution. Could such a thing be possible? Could the some of the most oppressed, traumatised, marginalised people on earth find it within themselves to forgive the very same people who are directly responsible for their suffering? Who have stolen their land, their houses, and in too many cases their lives? I understand the difficulty of such a situation. If I was Palestinian I don’t know if I would be up for it (especially considering what’s going on as we speak in Gaza.) But, to me, the only other option is just further endless bloodshed, which seems to be the way things are going. And keep in mind, I’m not any easier on the Israelis too. Israel will have to answer for a LOT of the needless suffering, oppression, torture, death, displacements, etc they’ve inflicted on the Palestinian people. They will have to wrestle with the violence they’ve caused and how unjust it’s all been. Basically I see the whole situation as a common test of forgiveness and good-will. Can Jews and Arabs ever truly live side by side without conflict? Can they ever learn to forgive each other and see the common humanity within them? That’s genuinely the only way this situation gets resolved peacefully. It’s how India got its independence without a major violent uprising. It’s how South Africa broke apartheid without descending to civil war. The only other “solutions” to this conflict, it we were being honest with ourselves, would be complete ethnic cleansing of Palestinians at the hands of Israel, or the complete ethnic cleansing of Israeli at the hands of Hamas etc. I don’t think I have to tell you why neither of these are favourable, especially in a world that has supposedly moved on from the catastrophic ethnic cleansings of the 20th century.

Yes, which was only accomplished after the Holocaust and Jews around the world were so desperate for their “own” piece of land that they’d be willing to set it up surrounded by impoverished Muslim countries. Zionism has existed since the mid-1800s, yet Israel was only declared in 1948. What happened between those times that could’ve impelled millions of Jews to rapidly settle in a small strip of land in the Middle East I wonder? Israel only exists because of the Holocaust. Had it never happened, it would’ve never been created. The whole thing exists so Jews can feel like they’re not at the mercy of Germans, or Russians, or Brits, or whoever else.

How do you convince Israelis to hand over most of their political power to people they’ve seen as enemies for nearly a century now? How do you convince Palestinians to not engage in revenge violence at the people they see as their oppressors, guilty or not? The tensions in the Levant region as it stands are so great that any attempt to integrate the two cultures would only end in bloodshed (as we’re currently seeing, actually.) How do you get a Westernised Israeli and an impoverished Palestinian to live side-by-side without wanting to kill each other? I’m not saying it can’t be done, I’m saying it will require incredibly levels of nuance, forethought and grace, that currently neither Israelis nor Palestinians are prepared to engage in.

In some sense, the Allies did try to understand where Nazism came from after the war. In many ways Nazism was a response to the economic devastation of the 1930s, with far too many people feeling insecure and vulnerable to care about things like “democracy” and “racial tolerance.” After the War, the Allies set up a substantial welfare state to eradicate the material origins of fascism in Germany and other countries. If we want to stop Israeli atrocities, we need to provide Jewish people perhaps not with the material conditions to reject Zionism, but certainly the cultural and social conditions. I suppose my question is this - what does a post-Zionist world actually look like? Is it a two-state solution? A one-state solution? Going back to the status quo before 2023? The expulsion of all Jews in the region? If you genuinely believe it’s the last one (which I don’t think you should), too many Israelis will feel like they’re receiving a second Holocaust, no matter how much you try to tell them they’re to blame. If you can’t genuinely answer these questions, then the causes of Israeli aggression will continue. Does Israel get disbanded? Does the region become a dual-ethnic state governed by both Muslims and Jews? How does that look like? Would Palestinians even want to live next to their oppressors after everything they’ve been through? Make no mistake, I’m not arguing for any one vision in particular. I’m just saying, the post-conflict world in Israel/Palestine is something far too many progressives have yet failed to address, leading to knee-jerk reactions instead.

Again, I agree with literally all of this. Read my posts again carefully. I’ve explicitly said the creation of Israel was a mistake. Again, my point isn’t to justify Israel’s behaviour, it’s to explain where it comes from. Militant Zionism is in essence one big collective trauma response. To the Zionists, “Israel = safety”, even if their own actions make that less likely. To overcome your enemy you must first know your enemy. Calling Israelis an evil people for their actions in Gaza counter-productively causes them to double-down on their aggression as they feel more people turn against them. It’s the spiral of hatred. The more and more you demonise a people (on whatever side of a conflict), the worse and worse the violence gets. You might utterly despise Israel for what they’ve done, and in many ways those feelings would be justified, but they would also blind you to seeking cooperative solutions to actually ending the conflict and allowing Palestinians to live in peace once again.

I’m not saying criticising Israel is antisemitism, because it isn’t. I’m just talking about the general and pernicious antisemitism that still exists everywhere, even against non-Zionist Jews. Literally just go onto Twitter or Facebook and you’ll find countless people with Hitler profiles calling for the eradication of Jews. The sort of antisemitism that led to the Holocaust long before Israel was established. Otherwise, you make good points. Israel’s actions are self-defeating, but they won’t realise this if they’re still acting out of trauma. Basically, enough Israelis need to be made aware that they’re not making themselves safe and that diplomacy and cooperation will actually improve their lives, but it’ll be much harder to that if every second WhatsApp groupchat in Britain, Nigeria, Pakistan, Korea etc is full of dipshits posting Nazi propaganda about how the Jews rule the world or whatever.

Paranoid people don’t make rational decisions. I’m not justifying Israel’s actions, I’m explaining the psychological motivations behind them. If, on some level, you’re still terrified of being wiped out, of course you’re going to make all sorts of irrational decisions to create a sense of security.

I’m not Jewish.

You’re not getting what I’m saying. The most radical Israelis would turn Israel into a ghetto if it was still “theirs” rather than accepting anyone else (and hence any group of people who could commit the Holocaust against them again) into their country if it meant financial stability. October 7th was basically a mass Holocaust flashback for many Jews. It brought up the latent fears that the world hates them and wants them dead.

You say this as someone who isn’t part of a group who hasnt literally faced attempted extermination in living memory. The Holocaust wiped out 1/3rd of all Jews on earth at the time. That would be like if the Japanese wiped out 46 million Americans in WW2, or Germany wiped out 14 million French people. That level of trauma and horror isn’t something to just move on from.

I mean, isn’t that kinda the problem? If Jewish people don’t feel like the rest of the world won’t try and exterminate them again, why would they give up Israel? In their perspective, a few thousand Palestinian lives (rightly or wrongly) are worth it to prevent the gas chambers again.

Again, I fully accept all of this. What Israel has done to the Palestinians over the last 80 years has been horrific, to put it mildly. But I’m also saying that Israel isn’t unique in its violence it commits against defenceless populations. When was the last time you heard anything about Tigray rights, or self-determination, or anything like that? When was the last time you heard about the oppressive and violent measures the Ethiopian state takes against them, dehumanises them, cuts off their food and water supplies and forces them to flee? The situations in Gaza and northern Ethiopia are incredibly similar. And yet we don’t hear a peep from progressives about it. Ethiopian PM Abiy Ahmed is to Tigray people what Netanyahu is to Palestinian people. And yet I bet up until this conversation you’d never heard of his name in your life.

That’s kinda my point. Again, I’m not saying what Israel is doing isn’t wrong, I’m just saying so much of the momentum against it seems to be wrapped up in naive group-think and too many people wanting an “enemy” to fight without really thinking about the nuances of the situation. Also just to be clear, I am an anti-Zionist and think the creation of Israel was a huge fuckup that caused far more problems than it solved. I just find it weird that this current war is portrayed as some “unique evil” when atrocities have been happening forever.

I’m sure if you dig deep enough Western powers are implicated in all those other conflicts, too. Granted, Israel has a unique connection with the West those other countries don’t, but are we also to say that somehow a Palestinian’s life is worth more than a Syrian’s life was worth when they were subject to much similar treatment under Assad’s brutal crackdown? My point isn’t to say that it’s wrong to criticise what Israel’s doing, my point is that it feels hypocritical to focus just on Israel when ethnic cleansings are happening everywhere, for much similar reasons. Where’s the pressure to stop the Burmese military killing pro-democracy protesters? Where’s the pressure to stop the Ethiopian government killing ethnic Tigrays? Are those governments somehow less “evil” just because we don’t know anything about them? EDIT: This is what Ethiopia is doing in Tigray, with literally more civilians dying than in Gaza. Where’s the pressure to stop this bloodshed?

One thing that has bothered me about the pro-Palestinian side (although I’m generally sympathetic to them) is that they’re acting like this is the first time ever civilians have been caught up in warfare. I mean, there’s even tweets from Hasan from 2012 making a joke about Obama’s military intervention trying to “stop Assad from committing war crimes against civilians”, but now a decade later he’s saying the world is failing for not doing the exact same thing he made fun of before? Where was the outrage for the Syrian Civil War? The rise of ISIS? The Libyan civil war? The uprising in Burma? The South Sudanese conflict? Bosnia? There have been on-going atrocities committed against civilians every single year every single one of us has been alive, but then apparently suddenly, in October 2023, everyone grows a conscience? Where was the outrage for all the other violence, all those countless other times? What makes Israel so much more evil than the South Sudanese military, or Burmese junta, or Assadist forces? Hell, what about the ongoing ethnic cleanings of Uighurs and Tibetans in the PRC? Hell, what about RUSSIA? They’re also genuinely trying to wipe the Ukrainians off the map. Why do the others get a pass or ignored but Israel is the only villain?

Leo, what are your thoughts on the Nakba? I’m not a fan of Hamas, and in fact I have many criticisms of Palestinian culture as a whole, but when something like an entire nation gets displaced from their homeland still within living memory, it’s hard not to expect people will act on that

The whole political underpinning of the world is in flux to be honest. What’s going on I can’t say for sure, but whatever it is it goes much deeper than just government vs businesses. You’re right to feel conflicted and confused. I myself have wrestled with many of the exact same questions lately. Darkness and insanity seems to be proven “correct” time and time again. But I think we’re just witnessing what’s going on on the surface. I don’t think the answer is just to agree that selfish, Trump-style greed is true, but it also seems that just expecting governments to function “normally” and society to behave by a set of legal norms seems to be ineffective these days too. A lot is going to change of the next few years. Things absolutely no one saw coming. The important thing in the meantime is to expand your groundedness, love, and ability to go with the flow. Peace.

By some metrics, this was the 7th deadliest events in human history, and yet we’ve barely heard a peep from anyone about it. I feel like I’m going insane. We all just went through a mass mortality crisis barely a few years ago and we all just pretend it didn’t happen? Every time there’s an earthquake or tsunami the whole gets off the arse to help and to grieve, so why not with COVID?? Huh?? What’s going on?? We can’t keep walking around with this level of cope and trauma forever. We need to fucking deal with this. Otherwise we’ll just keep walking around in a self-destructive haze from now until forever.

Statistically, you’re unlikely to do so (I myself don’t know anyone who died from it too), but they’re still out there, not to mention countless more people dealing with things like long covid. Also, even if your family was OK it still affected everyone, just through things like lockdowns, no overseas travel, masking, etc. Everyone responded to it differently, some people may have even enjoyed the change of pace, but it’s hard to deny that on a collective level it was a massive shock to our systems.

Everyone should just sit down and smoke a hookah