Hi,
I was thinking about what you said.
In a word, you were saying that if Israel’s enemies take every necessary step to ensure Israel’s safety in a permanent manner, then a two-states solution(, including giving back the “illegal” settlements,) could be envisioned, that’s a unilateral loss enabled by the law of the strongest. An inversed unilateral loss, in favor of the pro-palestinians, would see them taking back the holy lands. And a balanced exchange would have those who take(, western countries,) give something back(, of equal value,) in exchange.
At least expressed like that the first unilateral loss doesn’t seem more moral than the second one, but it is true that this loss can be more or less important(, e.g., disparition of Palestine, or a two-state solution, or only a jewish territory in a small part of the current israeli territory). Yet the second choice could(should?) also be seen as the most moral of the three, when it takes the year 1900 as a baseline for saying that Israel’s destruction is a neutral gain/loss for both sides(, instead of a unilateral gain/loss for one of them if we take the year 1960 as a baseline).
I’m in favor of making a trade by giving something worthwhile in exchange of the holy lands, but as you pointed out this is unrealistic, so let the strongest prevail i guess.
“I do agree that palestinians could get back the new settlements of the last decades and end any future palestinian persecution if they&‘their allies’ recognise Israel” is what i wanted to add, not sure that we would have followed the path of least resistance if the roles were reversed, but as you said giving them something of equal value in exchange is out of question

It’s just an addition, please don’t feel any obligation to answer, and thanks for the chat

Certainly I can understand their outrage, but how to logically respond would depend upon a nation’s ability to change that situation.

We’re arriving at the end of the discussion then, because we can argue about their chances but in the end none of us (can pretend to )know.s the future. Here’s why i think that the law of the strongest doesn’t necessarily work against them :

Afghanistan is the best modern example of people who won against impossible odds.
Since you mentioned “realpolitik”, and while you may have heard of it before, you could have heard it again recently with John Mearsheimer and others during the war in Ukraine, it is linked to Afghanistan in that, if all ukrainians were (traitors )like those in eastern Galicia, i doubt that Russia could have kept these territories : they would have had to face constant “terrorism” by more numerous inhabitants.
In the same spirit, wars for decolonization could also count as other examples of successful fights against overwhelming odds.
Yet when i’m thinking of such examples it’s about locals united in their perception of foreign armies as the enemy, and couldn’t be applied for Israel(, not occupied by a majority of locals/palestinians).

Even without that, they can win(, i.d.k. if they will,) if the ummah was united.
If it wasn’t enough of a weight(, i doubt it), they would certainly change the scale by uniting with Africa, the rest of Asia, Russia, and also South America. That’d mean even more coups by the west in order to keep control, and then by the rest, we(sterners) are lucky that they’re still closer to us.
(What interest me more is whether they should win(, and on what terms), the law of the strongest shouldn’t matter, but even through that lens, )Here’s a (naive )picture of how it could happen :

• they’ll throw a lot of propaganda to make their citizens f*cking hate to death israelis, painting them as monsters by recycling their war crimes and implying that they’re doing so because they’re evils, not because they want to survive, antisemitism could also help in that ;
• they’ll progressively cut all economic ties with the west as long as we dont accept their request, and have prepared beforehand as much as they can to withstand sanctions/‘economic war’ ;
• they’ll strengthen their link and, this is important, pledge publicly and repeatedly that they’ll invade each other if(when) someone is elected(, or placed after a coup,) that intend to break this oath ;
• they’ll regularly make military threats to Israel, but without acting upon it unless they know how to get rid of the bomb, so mostly to mark a point before diplomatic meetings and eventually take a habit of strengthening popular support like that, rejoicing in the fear that they think it may bring israelis, and of the coming day when they’ll conquer back their lands, as well as enact laws against israelis or even perhaps westerners ;
• …

If ‘fairness is excluded’/‘might makes right’/‘the only factor is strength’, then they’re not weak.
Only God would know how to solve this situation in the most perfect manner(, ideally if we were perfect/‘never doing anything that another being would consider bad for h.er.im’ then we wouldn’t rely on states, laws, borders, …, for protection, just freely join and leave communities with their own rules and paradise would come unto Earth, lands wouldn’t belong to anyone and we wouldn’t possess anything else, only living to do good to each other, but since we’re not perfect it’s useless to point that out(, Israel would be destroyed if they acted like that, and Palestine wouldn’t be recovered, and more generally societies would collapse, Christ is/shows the Way but if the other don’t also believe that he’s one with you it obviously quickly becomes useless, sry for the unproductive rambling).

Your answer for the past is that Israel should have been allowed to take “back” these (holy )lands, important for all the “children” of Abraham, perhaps that the arabs are also attached to these lands and would prefer to see them ruled by arabs/muslims, and not israelis/jews, they also had/have an importance for christians(, crusades). If they ever agree to lose one of their “hearts”, then fairness would require to give one of our “hearts” in exchange to palestinians(, with a lot of money, e.g. 0.1% of the g.d.p. of every country for a year, as well as the promise to leave the Middle-East alone, to lift sanctions, to ensure the security&‘total separation’ of both Israel and this state, etc.)
I think that it is the root of our disagreement, you’re starting from their right to take these lands to explain that the sins done by Israel were necessary(, if so are they still sins ?,) since they had hostile neighbours who wanted their destruction. Destroying Israel would be awful, but destroying Palestine is justified because they didn’t accepted Israel in the first place. Perhaps, i think that their desire to expand their borders is more important than their desire for security, but to get back to the “root” of our disagreement, you’ve seen that i’m not among those who want israelis to g.t.f.o., but i can’t blame those who do(, would you have accepted if they took one of our “hearts” by force ? It’s not Mecca or Medina but still).
You may think that it’s not such a big deal to take/keep these lands, perhaps you’re right, everything is relative, then perhaps that in the same sense it wouldn’t be such a big deal to give them a territory as well(, it could be the occasion to seal an alliance).

If you’d like a one sentence summary : You probably wouldn’t have accepted it either if islamists took a portion in the heart of our lands, not by might at least, but possibly if you/we were given something which would ‘be satisfying’/‘made it acceptable’.

Now that i think about it, i can’t resolve myself to say that they don’t have any legitimate right to revive their culture on their ancient lands(, still don’t agree with their refusal to be christian or muslim as well though, John and Muhammad ﷺ were prophets, the disagreements aren’t worth such profound schism, we follow Abraham, and more importantly (virtues and )God, christianity and judaism could be considered as sects of islam, or all of them sects of abrahamism(, that’s diversity without unity here)), but i know that we(sterners) wouldn’t owe arabs anything in exchange if it was totally just/fair to take these lands, so i’ll stay with my conclusion : the problem isn’t that Israel’s existence isn’t accepted by palestinians&muslims, but that we didn’t made its existence acceptable, in other words it’s up to us to make this right.
You’ll probably say that we won’t make their loss acceptable, then i don’t see why they should accept it, or why they should care if Israel disappears, if it’s the law of the strongest then they have a chance to win( for all i know).

Jews started out legally buying lands in Mandatory Palestine until they were massacred and had war waged on them on when they declared statehood. Any lands annexed was a result of this.

The Ottoman Empire forbade them to buy these lands during the XIXth century, and would never have accepted the british decisions, were the arabs just supposed to let them declare statehood ?

Polling indicates Palestinians want intifada and a one-state solution where Jews are denied equal rights, and they outnumber Israelis.

And what do israelis want ? A two-states solution ? Why won’t they put an end to the settlements then, and why is it anything else than a net gain for them and a loss for palestinians ?
What are the compromises that we(sterners) are making ?

Anger will not change their situation, it has led to it being this way.

The anger of israelis led to them killing thousands of people, no ?
But yeah, you’re probably right, i don’t really know what they expected, some kind of victory perhaps, they’re at war as well, and seized an occasion.

If ummah were a factor here I suspect Egypt wouldn’t be keeping Rafah closed, they clearly care more about using them as pawns with claims to land than they do the lives of Gazans stuck there.

If Egypt cared about palestinians they would help Israel in deporting them ?

While there is only one Jewish state there are many Arab/Islamic ones in the area and none of them seem willing to help Palestine, probably because those who did suffered for it with coups and terrorist organizations within their borders.

Most of them are still suffering because of their support/principles. Every single one of them is willing to help Palestine, but the more you’re trying to put pressure and the more you’re exposing your citizens for reprisals, so the extent of their actions may vary, i still think that they could win but what do i know really.

(And realpolitik don’t look at morals, it is machiavelism, looking for what’s fair/right/virtuous and then the realist ways to do this seems a better practice)

I have much to learn by talking with a pro-israeli, my sincere thanks for engaging.

[The claim that “if you kill their leaders they’ll just elect new ones”] has yet to be established

As i said with Benjamin Netanyahu : killing him won’t destroy Israel, just as killing their leaders wouldn’t destroy Hamas.
We have to solve the root of the problem, because “Hamas”(palestinians) have the moral high ground here, « If israelis are unwilling to pacify themselves, the destruction of Israel seems like the most humane remaining option that keeps Palestine safe. », wouldn’t you agree ?
« Palestine was annexed because israelis declared war on Palestine and won, funny how the Anti-Palestine crowd always conveniently forgets this and portrays the israelis as victims when they were absolutely the aggressors. »
« If israelis are reasonable, yes [killing them would be enough to deter them from killing more palestinians and occupying (more&more of )their land]. It would encourage them to find a path to peace. Perhaps they are not reasonable, their history of poking the bear, popular support of settlers and a one-state solution where they deny rights to palestinians certainly seems to indicate an unwillingness to compromise, which led to their present situation. »

I can’t understand how you could paint the israelis as the victims here : they were the ones who stole the lands(, and are continuing to steal more of it), they’re killed way less than they’re killing, both before and after Oct.7, with less material destructions, yet i can’t wish for them to permanently excuse themselves for existing, even if they should. There’s a few solutions possible other than a two-state solution, i can only regret that public debates don’t turn around this research of solutions instead of simply supporting one side, the anger of palestinians is legitimate, but what’s the plan. Israel is asking for a lot and can’t offer much in exchange, if i was arab i could consider that such weird locations could have a weird civilization different from the rest there, after all the muslims have expanded so much that they could accept to ‘paint in another color’/~lose one of their heart, but not without consequences for israelis/westerners, it should result at the very least in a huge boost for the ummah, something deemed worthwhile by all of them, which won’t happen since we(sterners) won’t give any of our “hearts”.

A crazy idea would be to plan for all countries to ally together in order to colonize and terraform Mars(, with commitments to certain realizations), from 2070 to 2177 for instance(, or longer if necessary), and our collective effort will be entirely done in order to give the whole planet Mars to countries claiming to be islamic. It’s a good situation in the solar system, and despite many problems and uncertainties could be deemed a huge gain without being more than a financial loss for other countries. Other possibilities exist even if this one may seem/be far-fetched.

random tweets

He’s the director of the World Health Organization, and many articles are talking about many U.N. schools, the most recent one has been linked to this video, and when you look at one of these schools, here, it’s not hard to imagine it being bombed in regard to the surrounding desolation. It’s more symbolic of their unwillingness to create safe zones than anything else, they even bombed refugee camps, and are used to kill innocent civilians in order to settle on their lands anyway.

You can’t depose Hamas, even if they managed to kill all of their leaders(, who don’t reside in the Gaza strip anyway), they’ll just elect new ones, i thought that this was obvious to everyone else. Even if Hitler was killed the third reich would have continued existing, the same goes for Israel if you kill Netanyahu, or the u.s.s.r. if you killed Stalin, there are a few modifications but the state doesn’t suddenly disappear, sry but i shouldn’t have to explain such obvious things and i’m afraid that a lot of other people think like you even if it’s so obviously delusional.
Game theory ? They were attacked because they stole these (holy )lands, and were continuing to steal more and more of them, committing atrocities almost every day(, or at least week,) in a complete silence from “the free world”. What’s the point, would killing 100 persons in retaliation deter palestinians from fighting back ? 1000 ? 3000 ? 5000 ? When does it stop ? I wouldn’t think that someone really say that the more Israel kills and the safer they’ll be, how could it make any sense, they’ll only be hated even more, do you think that they’re acting guided by their emotions when they’re expressing themselves so calmly ? Are palestinians allowed to “deter” israelis from acting like they do by killing even more of them ? Westerners had even more attacks on their territories once they wanted to “avenge” the first attacks by killing so much more people, in truth it’s obvious to almost everyone that vengeance wasn’t our goal, but our objectives were geopolitical, and were attained by burning everything held by the islamists, and torturing&killing the prisoners. I hope that they’re not thinking that their only way to prevent such attacks is to mass murder thousands of innocents, especially considering that their walls were effective for decades.
Netanyahu is already at the end of his political career, your explanation is awful if true, but i’ve already talked about the blinded desire for revenge without any aim, i can’t think that they’re only guided by emotions when acting so rationally, they’re head of states not teenagers in a video game, if they’re doing something like that it’s in order to gain something that couldn’t be obtained otherwise.
I don’t agree with you because i can’t see the point : is it really a blind/stupid desire of revenge ? Just killing innocents everywhere without any other goal than that ?

If the most recent death toll wasn’t enough, here’s something else showing that they don’t really care about keeping an appearance, as well as another U.N. school, i don’t know what to say or do, everyone knows that they won’t destroy “Hamas” :

If their goal was only to send a message, then there’s no point to be that extreme, the only reason left that i can see is that they want to keep the Gaza Strip, it’s always a bet but they considered that they’ll be allowed to(, in which case their security would indeed be increased by getting rid of all palestinians).
Their neighbours would have to be quite desperate to think that embracing Israel and the west is still their best option, but if they do it’d probably be for economic reasons, and/or perhaps fears of retaliations, i.d.k., we’ll see how it’ll evolve in the future, but i can’t believe that they would kill all of these people and destroy everything without a real goal, sending a pointless message isn’t one, nor is the unrealistic aim of destroying “Hamas”, i find it hard to imagine them simply going back to their side as if they accomplished something by pointlessly mass murdering thousands of childrens&humans on the other side of the wall, awful that this senseless option of a useless massacre is the most desirable.

Thanks ? Seems like i should repeat what i wrote in regard to your advice/conclusion.

I’m 32.

Throw me a few arguments if you want to continue, otherwise thanks for the chat.

Yup, Microsoft has made criticizable choices and i’m pro-Linux, but :

• I would need to document myself on this topic ;
• Conspiracies about his links with covid(, harder to find on the Internet, i remember that they made a simulation for a global coronavirus pandemic ~6 months prior(, here, but there’s also a 90-pages long pdf also written at the end of 2019 written in 2017, and unrelated to event 201 and whatever conspiracy there may be(, i didn’t take a look at these theories), but interesting nonetheless, advising the government for censorship among other things,) among other weird coincidences,) may be partially true for all i know, but in any case he’s at worst a co-conspirator and not the instigator(, if he played a role at all, which i still doubt/‘don’t really believe’, contrary to intelligence services who are much more used to biological weapons, perhaps as horrific as atomic ones, and intersideral wars will destroy whole planets if we haven’t solved wars until then(, while keeping our diversity since it’s desirable&possible)), i’ll pass on the dishonesty of “our world in data” since he’s following the standard and isn’t an exception there(, statista is worse[, edit to clarify on my suspicions on this standard : i was thinking of the number of deaths probably overestimated(, e.g., the flu stopped killing) ; but also of very subjective personal choices like how a growing inequality isn’t emphasised here, or relevant indicators to observe neo-colonialism ; or the choice of g.d.p. as an indicator because, e.g., rent inflates it and make it seem as if capitalism produces more g.d.p. ; and mostly overall suspicions towards a certain vision of economy that should perhaps not be considered as the orthodoxy, if only for the numerous negative externalities, the ‘lucrative properties’/‘passive income’, and the lack of democratic control of our workplace, things aren’t perfect and experimentations of theoretical improvements should be allowed outside&inside of our borders/control, technologies changed everything, i deny the superiority of capitalism for bringing innovations(, R&D is a waste of money when you can simply copy and focus on communication, our generations are breed in this atmosphere and despite being more wealthy aren’t really the child of our past nobles, we had it for centuries and then lost it)]) ;
• His expense of wealth(, even if he’s wealthier than when he started donating,) are something i can only clap for. Since it is the only thing i vaguely documented myself on, Bill Gates is among the billionaires who spent their stolen wealth in the best manner, yes, i feel that i can only applaud.

I’d have preferred if citizens, religious, or public organisations filled this role, but they’re not powerful enough(, states excluded, and some humanitarian associations, who always lack donations), so i’m glad that some capitalists fight against preventable diseases/deaths in poorexploited countries, it could be worse since our “morals” are celebrating the “virtue” of capitalists’ selfishness, so double yay for B.Gates, W.Buffet, and other philanthropists, unironically(, because even if it’s not ideal it could be worse and their donation/wealth/power is needed).
It seems like an irrefutable point of view to claim that you can rank humans/billionaires according to the virtue of their deeds, and that putting all of them on the same scale is dishonest, just take random examples like the Walton family among others, they’re your typical billionaires, others are even worse since they’re supporting political/media/educational/… views increasing the economic inequalities in their favor, or even the so-called “anarcho”-capitalism, we’re far from our previous ideals of equality(, social reproduction/determinism : private education, inheritance, …). So yeah, i unapologetically rejoice that some of them are using their stolen wealth/power for greater causes.

One is a government punishing you for saying something. The other is a company saying, “not on my platform.”

Oh, ok, i could eventually agree with this definition.

My own definition is that you can moderate without censoring(, kinda like you can neutralize without killing), even if most social medias aren’t using things like warnings before censoring, or overall participation of the (unpaid )mods in the forums to guide newcomers, straighten flamewars by words, answer questions, register complaints and advices, create special events, bots on discord, and as many collective events than can be thought of, almost to the point of being more like a supervisor than a moderator. If such a distinction makes sense a moderator would be between a censor and a supervisor, a manager would be yet another word but i could mix these four into the same word, censorship is only the last resort of the moderator, it’s usually enough to point out the mistake for the user to amend h.im.er.self by acknowledging h.er.is faults and leaving the community or keeping the rules more in mind, it shouldn’t be a surprise ban but that’s commonplace on reddit, it’s not my philosophy but w/e, i’ve talked about it with 2-3 mods in the past and they don’t agree, it’s taking them a lot of time as well so they’re not thinking twice nor engaging.

That was a long introduction, hope it wasn’t too boring, i’ll take your definition and say that unfortunately the government is using the word moderation in its speeches and is making laws to censor illegal speeches on the internet, like defense of what they’ll choose to call terrorists, or denial of what they’ll call genocide, or the counter-informations that they may falsely deem disinformation(, covid could be an example, some conspiracies as well), E.Musk is annoying because the Community Notes also debunk our disinformation, and i’ll only mention astroturfing.
Do you want a short excerpt of my long list of examples of government censorship ?
Furthermore, what’s the censorship by companies if not the censorship by the wealthy/powerful for written(“legacy”) medias ? Don’t you think they have enough power like that. States should protect us from their censorship by allowing us some rights, like a proper explanation before being banned or the right to keep a copy of their data afterwards, or not i’m against government interference in one way or another(, except if our declared enemies can use this against us, but we’re going beyond that and are clearly aiming to prevent people from speaking uncomfortable/convincing proofs, WikiLeaks is emblematic of a larger movement, and the “cancel culture” has destroyed careers of some people for false reasons, our governments don’t trust the population to make their own conclusions.

What’s the difference ?

But if you were born in option 2, and lived all your life in Paradise, wouldn’t you want to experiment something else than this homogeneous unity, if only to know yourself, to distinguish yourself from your equals ?
If you don’t follow the thought, that’s because you’re asking for the disappearance of all evils, a perfect world will have nobody better than someone else, we’ll all reach the maximum conceivable potential, every single being would be as absolutely perfect as the laws of the universe allows a being to be.
That’s not what you want, you don’t want the absolute end/perfection but something in between, we’ll get there, and it could realistically be argued that this halfway towards perfection is long behind us, that’s the goal but i’m glad we still have stuff to do instead of an aimless/useless existence in a perfect world.

Furthermore suffering is rarely pointless, please pick an example it’d be less theoretical, here’s an old comment if you’d like to see a few of them in the first paragraphs.
If carnivores didn’t killed vegetarians then they would destroy everything, and if trees didn’t die they wouldn’t let enough place for new generations, but eating/killing stays a bad thing, which is why it should be avoided whenever possible(, e.g., not to die ourselves). We don’t live in the best possible world, but the trip may be more enjoyable than having reached the ultimate destination millenias ago.

(It’s out of topic but the universe is so big and it’s so easy to spy on planets by building trillions of automated probes that it’s weird we’re still feeling/being free from external/alien influences, w/e 🤷‍♂️)

How much better would be enough ? You’ll always have something less good than the Maximum/Perfection, until you have an homogeneous Goodness.
Fortunately we’re allowed to improve, that’s all i could ask for, unfortunately the trip/improvement/growth is necessarily finite, you’re asking to start at the end.

Twitter was increasing its censorship(, do you need proof for that affirmation ?), would you trust the government to own the “townsquare”/“marketplace of ideas” ? I would only trust a government truly owned by its citizens, in a real/direct democracy with efficient counterpowers.
He had many more ideas in order to use these 40 billions, but thought that twitter/‘freedom of expression’ is worth it(, that’s what he’s repeating, since you won’t believe in his good intentions what’s your opinion on such a huge loss a money ?), now everyone tries to ruin twitter, and you support them, because he’s not censoring enough for you apparently, is that the reason ? Bad nazis that shouldn’t be allowed to spread hate ? Can’t you see that our governments want to keep their control on the narrative, or do you just find “normal” that our newspapers agree between them on our foreign policy(, just as the medias of our unfree enemies brainwash their citizens(, yet we’ve strangely never read them once)) ?
A journalist who’s “anti-system” isn’t deemed acceptable for the owners of the (legacy )medias, hence s.he/we only have alternative medias and some fringe portions of the Internet left(, for now), seems worth fighting for.

All billionaires are thieves but it’s hard to argue that the state or citizens would have accomplished as much as his teams.
He’s the billionaire who did the most, why should he also be the first to be criticised, it doesn’t make sense he should be the last.

I expected at least a downvote though :'(, am i becoming mainstream ?

I can debate in favor of E.Musk or religions if you’re interested(, my computer crashed a week ago so i’ve got time for now), Internet is there for us to learn after all, there’s not much point for me to stay in Lemmygrad(, yeah, i’m also a communist, too many defects for a single little boy).

And yeah, this world is infuriating, not funny(, but be happy if you want to, i’ll stay angry).

Untold suffering ? Do you realize how easily everything could be worse ? How lucky you are to live in this place and time ?
How much closer to perfection is enough ? What are the main criticisms you have in mind so that i could explain why they’re usually necessary for a greater good, and usually the responsability of humans and not the laws of physics/mathematics/logic/Nature ?

Funny because i don’t think you understand my point of view either, especially if you’re equating all christians with literalists, if you read the Bible you’ll be forced to interpret it allegorically, which is why being raised in a nonreligious environment doesn’t prevent from having misconceptions either.

But sincere thanks for your polite answer though.

“Everything that was/is/‘will be’” is the evidence of God’s intervention. There’re many definitions because the “First Cause” implies many other things, like the Past/Present/Future/End, the Existence/Reality, but also the Maximum/Perfection/Guide/Light, and at least a dozen of other things that i haven’t perceived and/or am too lazy to add to the list, negative theology is also very interesting.

Is your only argument the old one of the existence of bad things ? There’re many answers but my usual one is that a perfect world gets boring after a while, even if that’s the goal, there’s no meaningful purpose afterwards if you think about it.
Another old answer is that suffering comes from desire(, hence, i.m.h.o., i prefer to suffer than stop desiring, and can’t complain since i ‘am responsible for my own suffering’/‘can always decide not to desire’).

Thanks for your answer though.

Alternative headline : https://reclaimthenet.org/elon-musk-advertisers-go-f-yourself