jungle

Brilliant! This is one of those things that when you see it, it seems so obvious that you wonder how nobody thought of it until now. But it takes someone like Randall to pluck it out of the space of unexplored ideas and present it perfectly.

Not really, relativity plays no role here. It’s classical Newtonian physics.

You should read the whole article. It’s really not that long.

Yep, I wish everyone thought like that.

Yes, in spite of all the efforts decade after decade there has been no solution. Sometimes it was close (like when Arafat and Rabin shook hands) but any progress was always destroyed by the extremists on one side or the other, or by outside interests.

I don’t think there’s a solution. External pressure will hopefully stop this escalade, but the conflict will persist.

Loved the video. Is that you?

Please share.

Your “very superficial explanation” is already orders of magnitude deeper than most people’s understanding of the conflict.

Breaking my own rule here, but whatever.

There’s no need for a Jewish state per se. There’s a need for a state for Jews, so they can live without fear of being persecuted, like they have been for hundreds of years.

Same reason there’s a need for a Palestinian state.

During my relatively long life I’ve witnessed journalism morph from giving information to forming opinion. Sometimes they do it openly, sometimes they try to pass it as the context you mention.

I believe context is necessary now because of how fragmented people’s attention is. We used to have 5 tv channels and two main newspapers and that was it. It was easier to keep the focus and remember the context back then.

Or, rather, we were all inside the same information bubble. Now everyone is in their own bubble, and there’s no more common understanding of reality.

This conflict makes it super clear, because of its complexity and long history, that people don’t have the time or bandwidth to understand the whole thing and end up repeating what they hear inside their bubble.

For example: your opinion is largely influenced by your location and your own history, much more than by the facts of the conflict. I come from Argentina, where most people support Israel, and I live in Ireland, where most people support the Palestinians. There’s understandable reasons for that. Argentina suffered two Islamic terrorist attacks against local Jewish institutions, while Irish people identify with Palestinians because of the British oppression.

I personally live in my own bubble of course, we all do. I know my opinion is heavily influenced by my own history.

As a consequence I end up getting involved in online discussions where I argue for nuance and against simplification, but that just puts me on the “wrong side” of both “sides”. So for my own mental health I’ve been trying to stop participating. I only wanted to chime in here because your comment seemed to capture some of what I think.

You think that will fix the underlying issue? How naive.

You can read the thread yourself, I’m not going to waste my time if you refuse to do that.

I see, so the solution is to stop being Jew, or better yet, to simply die. Got it. Thanks.

Sure, we don’t want no context here. That only makes this less black and white, and nobody ain’t got time for that.

From one old and tired person to another, thanks for adding context to what is usually context-less and naive platitudes around here.

I’m in the “this is not black and white” camp, but what Israel is doing now is indefensible, even when considering the inhuman atrocities Hamas committed on October 7th. Bombing a refugee camp in the hopes of killing a few Hamas terrorists is just crazy. Flattening a city full of civilians for the same reason is just crazy.

That said, I don’t know what the answer is. I honestly believe there’s no solution to this conflict. Proposing that Israel remove the border controls and let the Palestinians roam free, given the number of terrorists in their ranks, is just hopelessly naive. They should absolutely return the illegal settlements, but even if they do that (sadly they won’t), the terrorists won’t stop.

Israel has never been the victim in this conflict.

You have to be fucking kidding me.

Both sides have been victims of their respective leaderships for decades.

The Palestinians have been victims of the Zionists, especially the religious right with their illegal settlements.

The Israelis have been victims of the Islamic terrorists, currently led by Hamas, whose explicit goal is to eradicate every Jew.

You can’t seriously look at this conflict and ignore half the story.

That’s a nice saying. It’s also a deflection from answering the question.

I don’t agree with what Israel is doing, but I also don’t see what an appropriate response would have been. Certainly not responding was not an option. And innocent civilians are going to be victims in any form of response.

Wait, what? I haven’t been following these last few days. Can you share a link?

I’m sorry, I realize I’m going in circles, repeating myself comment after comment.

My parents fled the Holocaust and even though I don’t consider myself Jewish, by ethnicity and by family history I am. I think nobody deserves to be killed no matter what.

I hope there’s a solution and that I’m wrong. I hope my opinion is not based on experience but on the fact that I’m old and jaded.