Professor Dave goes off on Destiny and Israel 🇮🇱

[ZeldaStar]

Leo's sharing some gold nuggets balanced perspective here. Whatever side you are on, if you wanna actually resolve the conflict, it sounds like you would be wise to learn more on the other side's perspective. You would literally have the same opinion as those people you argue with if you shared their experiences. 

Edited September 6 by ZeldaStar

[Karmadhi]

On 9/5/2026 at 7:49 AM, Heaven said:

@Leo Gura Can you explain why there is so much hate towards Israelis and not Russians?

I can give you my 2 cents from discussing with many people about it

1. Israel is fairly democratic while Russia is not. This means that when Russia government does bad actions, the population seems to be excluded, it is just the dicator fault. In a more democratic place, the citizens bear responsability a lot more because they do not seem to protest or do much to stop it

2. The sentiment and rhetoric coming out of normal Israelis in interviews is usually a lot more genocidal and disturbing. In the case of Russians, they usually say "it is bad but what can we do". Israelis seem to be supporting the killing of Palestinians a lot more. Polls in Israel show that and they are trusted more than Russian polls which can be viewed as government propaganda. I have been told for example by a Russian I met once that most young Russians oppose the war, same cannot be said for most young Israelis.

3. The footage of dead and injured civilians, especially kids coming out of Gaza is NR 1 reason for the outrage imo. There is simply not the same footage coming out of Ukraine, especially if you are not in very specialized telegram chats, meanwhile about Gaza it exploded in popular platforms like Instagram and Tik Tok

4. The numbers for Gaza are much worse. Over 21.000 childreen killed compared to 700 or so in Ukraine.

At least 50.000 civilians killed in Gaza when in Ukraine it is around 16.000. Note that Ukraine has a much higher population which means that proportionally, Gaza is way worse in terms of civilian losses.

I checked for example the life expectancy in Gaza has almost half since the conflict began while it has barely moved for Ukraine. Basically "Russians are bad but Israelis are way more inhuman" is the sentiment I heard from MANY people.

5. The conditions of life for civilans in Gaza is a lot worse.

Famine, no anesthesia in hospitals, no safe place to go. Hundreds getting shot to receive some basic aid.

In Ukraine life goes on.

A friend of mine told me once "I can go to Ukraine and have the best time of my life".

People still have fairly normal lives, go to school, party or go to work. And people evacuate when the war reaches their city. 

If you did a poll I am sure 99% of the voters would prefer to be a civilian in Ukraine than Gaza if they had to pick.

These are some reasons.

Now you may rightly say, "what would Russia have done if it was attacked the same way"

The thing is that, people do not go with those "what if" scenarios

They go with what has actually happened, they go with the current situation.

They see what happened to Gaza and Ukraine and compare with the outcome only.

Also, to be fair there was a gigantic bad terrorist attack in Moscow in 2024 killing close to 200 civilians in Russia and I did not see Russia go apeshit and start carpet bombing Uzbekistan or Syria or whoever was responsible for it. Even if you would say "they blamed Ukraine", it did not really change the strategy used. They did not suddendly become worse. They brushed it aside.

If a similar attack had happened in American soil, they would have went out for blood 100%.

Another counter-argument you may have is that "Ukraine overall has lost more people than Gaza"

That is true I would say.

However, you need to understand that people do not put the same value in life lost of soldiers compared to civilians, especially childreen.

Soldiers dying is seen as a tragedy of war and not avoidable

However, civilian deaths especially in the way Israel does it is seen as simple bruality and avoidable

Especially childreen

The number 1 insult that people give Israelis these days is "baby or child killer"

In Ukraine 90% of losses are soldiers, so such sentiment is not held

And it is the idea of killing kids which gives people the most outrage and anger.

Edited September 7 by Karmadhi

[hundreth]

This was hard to watch.

[Leo Gura]

On 9/5/2026 at 6:03 PM, iceprincess said:

@Leo Gura   Can you do a video on the Israel-Palestine conflict? your take is so interesting 

I even have an outline for such a video, but I don't want to deal with all the crap that I would get for it.

I don't like entering the political battleground.

Edited September 17 by Leo Gura

[Basman]

Destiny streams are some of the laziest content I've ever seen when he's not debate lording. He just plays some video for minutes straight while playing some game and occasionally says something . People work harder just to get up in the morning.

[iceprincess]

@Leo Gura okay just post it on your blog then 

[Husseinisdoingfine]

3 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

I even have an outline for such a video, but I don't want to deal with all the crap that I would get for it.

I don't like entering the political battleground.

Then please make it like one of your good old fashion couch blog videos that you used to do.

https://www.actualized.org/insights/my-political-awakening

https://www.actualized.org/insights/conscious-capitalism-bs

https://www.actualized.org/insights/why-bernie-sanders-lost

[AtmanIsBrahman]

5 hours ago, Husseinisdoingfine said:

Then please make it like one of your good old fashion couch blog videos that you used to do

Yes! We need more blog videos 

[sda]

13 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

I even have an outline for such a video, but I don't want to deal with all the crap that I would get for it.

I don't like entering the political battleground.

Do you plan to release this video in the future?

[Yali]

16 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

I even have an outline for such a video, but I don't want to deal with all the crap that I would get for it.

 

@Leo Gura How about you add longer form videos to your "clips" vault? The more controversial ones.....

[hundreth]

21 hours ago, hundreth said:

This was hard to watch.

I think this is important, and I don't know if these responses are cherry picked or not, but I suspect they are not.
 

I believe that many Israelis fear exactly this. That any concession will be used to further strengthen the "resistance" and decimate any concept of Israel or a Jewish state in the region. It is analogous to the Gaza withdrawal. Israel made a concession, and then Hamas was elected and started sending rockets in. Now anti Israel voices will say its because the concessions weren't enough. Israel removed its civilians and military presence from the region, but because they didn't FULLY make Gaza autonomous overnight then it is justification to attack. This game can be played endlessly. 

[Raze]

On 9/18/2026 at 2:52 PM, hundreth said:

I think this is important, and I don't know if these responses are cherry picked or not, but I suspect they are not.
 

I believe that many Israelis fear exactly this. That any concession will be used to further strengthen the "resistance" and decimate any concept of Israel or a Jewish state in the region. It is analogous to the Gaza withdrawal. Israel made a concession, and then Hamas was elected and started sending rockets in. Now anti Israel voices will say its because the concessions weren't enough. Israel removed its civilians and military presence from the region, but because they didn't FULLY make Gaza autonomous overnight then it is justification to attack. This game can be played endlessly. 

 

People often forget Palestinians lived peacefully with a Jewish minority for centuries, and easily integrated refugee populations like Armenians.

The issue with Zionism is it was a racial supremacist project seeking to torment and destroy the lives of Palestinians to create their racial supremacist state, similar to the British trying to create a white state on Native American land. That persists to this day.

Zionists arguments are just perversions designed to deflect such as post hoc rationalizations like insisting it’s actually their religion or they are the rightful owners, or the actual racists seeking extermination are their victims. This is how actual pioneering Zionists talked:

Quote

We can talk as much as we want about our good intentions; but they understand as well as we what is not good for them. They look upon Palestine with the same instinctive love and true fervor that any Aztec looked upon his Mexico or any Sioux looked upon his prairie.

 

Quote

Every indigenous people will resist alien settlers as long as they see any hope of ridding themselves of the danger of foreign settlement.

That is what the Arabs in Palestine are doing

 

[hundreth]

3 hours ago, Raze said:

 

People often forget Palestinians lived peacefully with a Jewish minority for centuries, and easily integrated refugee populations like Armenians.

The issue with Zionism is it was a racial supremacist project seeking to torment and destroy the lives of Palestinians to create their racial supremacist state, similar to the British trying to create a white state on Native American land. That persists to this day.

Zionists arguments are just perversions designed to deflect such as post hoc rationalizations like insisting it’s actually their religion or they are the rightful owners, or the actual racists seeking extermination are their victims. This is how actual pioneering Zionists talked:

 

 

Ok, but why do you revert to the same tired talking points that have little to do with the content I posted? 

Zionism this, Zionism that. I don't care about Zionism. Zionism already happened. Israel is here, it exists. The question is how to move forward. The illuminating part of the video I posted is that Palestinians themselves say they will never stop "resisting" and trying to reclaim ALL of the land. Jews & Israelis will never give up their state. It seems your quotes are designed to morally justify Palestinians endlessly fighting to "rid themselves" of the danger. 

Ok, so then you concede this is ultimately a zero sum game? Let's stop circling around it. If it's a zero sum game, then it is a war. That's what anti Israel voices have been arguing against for years, that it is not a war. You can't have it both ways. 

I'm starting to realize that far right Israelis and far left pro Palestinian progressives have a lot more in common than we previously thought. They both view the conflict as a zero sum game. The Israelis are more honest that this is a war. The Palestinian side hides behind historical quotes and moral rationalizations to re-label war as resistance. 

[Raze]

25 minutes ago, hundreth said:

Ok, but why do you revert to the same tired talking points that have little to do with the content I posted? 

Zionism this, Zionism that. I don't care about Zionism. Zionism already happened. Israel is here, it exists. The question is how to move forward. The illuminating part of the video I posted is that Palestinians themselves say they will never stop "resisting" and trying to reclaim ALL of the land. Jews & Israelis will never give up their state. It seems your quotes are designed to morally justify Palestinians endlessly fighting to "rid themselves" of the danger. 

Ok, so then you concede this is ultimately a zero sum game? Let's stop circling around it. If it's a zero sum game, then it is a war. That's what anti Israel voices have been arguing against for years, that it is not a war. You can't have it both ways. 

I'm starting to realize that far right Israelis and far left pro Palestinian progressives have a lot more in common than we previously thought. They both view the conflict as a zero sum game. The Israelis are more honest that this is a war. The Palestinian side hides behind historical quotes and moral rationalizations to re-label war as resistance. 

It’s actually the opposite, Palestinians and Israel critics have shifted because they realized the liberal Zionists and Israel’s far right are the same.

It is a zero sum game because that is how they view it, the narrative they would ever accept Palestinian self determination was just a ploy to buy time to further destroy Palestine.

In the case of the left, they used to support Israel. However Israel continued to engage in aggression, expand occupation and settlements, and crush Palestinian protest. Then the left shifted to a middle ground two state support. Israel than engaged in a policy designed to make two states impossible. Since Oct 7 this has become so blatant and it became more obvious the goal was to strangle the Palestinians until there was a reaction to justify wiping them out which is why the left turned away from supporting Israel’s “Jewish state” argument because it is clearly just being used to distract and deflect long enough for them to finish the destruction of Palestine. 

Every liberal Zionist argument works this way.

You once again brought up the Gaza pullout like it was somehow a good faith attempt at peace that Palestinians rejected.

In reality Ariel Sharon’s chief aid specifically said the goal was to pause the peace process, and leaked emails show the head of Israel military intelligence saying they were glad Hamas would win the election so they can treat Gaza as a hostile entity.

Because that was the goal, they turned Gaza into a ghetto and used it as a distraction to expand the occupation of the West Bank. Going as far as funding Hamas themselves.

This is also what happened with Palestinians. There were many polls showing a majority of Palestinians supported a two state solution. In 2006 it was 70%, as late as 2017 polls found 51%. The PA already agreed to it under the Arab peace initiative (and no they did not demand a full right of return to end the jewish state). But every time it just is used as a cudgel to beat them with. What exactly is irrational here? There are long periods of minimal to no violent resistance by Palestinians, Israel doesn’t budge an inch, they finally have an uprising that Israel responds to so brutally it leads to international pressure that they actually stop holding an entire people hostage, Israel puts forward nonsense offers that even pro-Israel negotiators admit they wouldn’t accept, and it repeats, all the while we see Zionists openly celebrating more land being stolen. The former head of shin bet himself noted in an interview how so called liberal Israeli leaders would try to campaign on saying they built more settlements or successfully resisted removing them, and now it was absurd Palestinians would expect to trust them as legitimately seeking a end to their subjugation.

In fact exit polls on the election Hamas won even found a majority of Hamas voters in Gaza supported two states.

What happened was Israel continued to sabotage two states by putting forward deals calling for permanent occupation, acting like Palestinians block peace when they reject agreeing to their own permanent dispossession, then installing more and more illegal settlements with the stated intention of making two states impossible.

Liberal Zionists only ever enabled this.
Did they support pressuring Israel to negotiate the Arab peace initiative? Did they support pressuring Israel to remove its demands in its offers which were no-go for the Palestinians? No.

Did they support non-violent Palestinian resistance? No, they worked to outlaw it and make sure weapons flow continued to Israel while they massacred peaceful protestors.

The UK just did meager sanctions of settlements for the stated goal of wanting them to stop trying to destroy two states, and the liberal Zionists responded with a media campaign accusing them of antisemitism.

It was always zero sum to Zionists, it just took the destruction of the people of Gaza for more people to realize this and that by going along with their media narrative they actually ever wanted a just solution was just enabling them.

Frankly even that wasn’t enough, at this point they’re physically bringing down the world economy over their insane desire to protect a few hundred thousand squatters. The biggest pushback isn’t even people who care about Palestinians at this point. 

Edited 40 minutes ago by Raze