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

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Afghanistan, like Vietnam, was not an existential threat to the US. It’s not really comparable because of this.

It’s not comparable because the disparition of Israel would be an existential threat to the u.s. ?

Realpolitik just means acknowledging the political realities of their situation. Political realism.

Without discussing what should be, only how to do it(, and usually without considering the morality of the path taken, only its assumed effectiveness, there’re reasons to believe that Machiavel wrote The Prince as a criticism and not a support b.t.w.).
If i remember correctly J.Mearsheimer liked realism for its predictive power.

Guerilla warfare can sometimes be effective, however I do not believe this approach will lead to victory against Israel

Only because Israel’s territory isn’t populated by palestinians, which is why i mentionned Ukraine, whose annexed/liberated territories aren’t anti-russians like in eastern Galicia, perhaps because they believe that Russia is large enough to become a.n ‘future continent’/‘original culture’ by itself, and want to believe in this idea, and/or perhaps for other reasons. But w/e.

For Israel this isn’t a fight to colonize, it’s a fight to exist. There are many Arab nations that could take in Palestinians, not so for Jews.

They can go in “the first&free world” if that’s your argument.
And they’re colonizing more territories because it’s a fight to exist ?
As this comment pointed out : palestinians are at most a threat in the future, but aren’t strong enough currently to be deemed a serious threat, a fight for survival implies an enemy strong enough to kill you, and as you previously recognised, if we’re only talking about palestinians, then they’re not there( yet).
Israelis were relatively safe all these decades(, compared to their neighbours), and i could only imagine that Palestine’s destruction would enhance their security if arabs/muslims accept it and refuse to stand for palestinians, and if israelis stop there, because they would still have to invade/coup such countries as Iran or political movements such as Hezbollah, and would continue as long as they’re not accepted.
If you presented Israel’s survival as ‘a moral argument’/‘what should be’, which would probably not be “realist” to do so, then i could return the same argument for palestinians, and ask you why you don’t support the intifada on these same moral grounds, but you more likely said that to explain their motivation and give an estimation of their strength/resolve.

I believe you are overestimating both international support for Palestine and the military capabilities of most African and South American nations

As you saw afterwards, i wasn’t talking of a military fight, but of a.n economic&diplomatic one(, even if coups generally imply a military role, sometimes bloodless but very often not).

most of their Arabic neighbors recognize that making an ally of the United States and the EU is far more strategically valuable than backing this group that wants endless war and seeking unreasonable demands.

Unreasonable because they won’t ever win ? Well, who knows ?
I don’t see them supporting Israel and abandoning palestinians(, only Morocco’s gains would be significant, yet they’re still seemingly hesitant), i’ll agree that they still have a margin of retaliation/pressure towards the west though, perhaps are they forced to wait for a more opportune time to act or, as you said, have accepted such unconditional loss, not sure that we would have if the roles were reversed. As previously mentioned, they wouldn’t win anything by complying, and i don’t see clearly the extent of what they’d lose by resisting(, some could include their honor or other immaterial examples).

Hamas launched this attack because Saudi Arabia was about to recognize Israel, after all, and SA is dependent upon the US for security. If they alienate the US they have Iran to contend with.

In my opinion Saudi Arabia has more reasons to be afraid of the u.s.a.&co than of Iran, since, except for the Gulf monarchies, every single one of their neighbours ‘has been’/‘is being’ destroyed : the color revolutions, Mohamed Morsi, Lybia, Sudan, Eritrea, Yemen, Iran, Iraq, Syria, and even Lebanon is in an economic crisis(, and kinda Türkiye as well), you just have to open a map and list every country. If we’re going a bit further then we have Afghanistan, Pakistan, Nagorno-Karabakh, almost all countries destroyed by the west, and i haven’t counted kurd separatists or the islamic state, it’s not a stretch to think that they desire stability, but what a f*cking world, we don’t understand that, Ethiopia, Somalia, Kenya, Congo, Chad, Niger, central asian republics, Georgia, …, these countries seems far away, if the realist choice is just to always follow the strongest regardless of what’s right/fair, then i don’t want to be a realist.

Russia has its own issues right now and cannot afford another front

Is there a single non-western country more active than them around the world currently ?

Given their behaviors in Chechnya, they do not seem to be sympathetic to Muslims.

As if they didn’t lose enough historical territory in 1991, V.Putin’s party isn’t called United Russia for nothing, of course we(sterners) supported the separatists terrorists(, but hated them when these “orks” fought on the side of Russia&‘south-eastern ukrainians’ recently).
The first hostage released by Hamas was an israeli who also had a russian nationality, and there were other gestures if this kind of things matter, the timing of the l.g.b.t. ban may perhaps also be linked in some way, i.d.k.(, they also have their own muslim republics in the russian federation, Chechnya is apparently very homophobic, and it’s not only inside their borders or in the Middle-East, but in Africa as well), just to say that i wouldn’t count on their islamophobia.

If such creatures exist, they haven’t weighed in

The (uncaused )Cause is the only being which isn’t a creature(, and the only to be the Being), i don’t think a direct visible interference would be that desirable, everything would just be solved and there wouldn’t be anything else to do, i prefer to feel free, but in any case there’s always determinism and God as the Cause for this kind of interrogation.

It would be like humans trying to control ant societies in our backyards, why would we care?

Not sure that despite our imperfection we wouldn’t be a part of the All/One, and there’s always the law of karma among other laws of our reality, parts of the All do care, and if we look/seek the Greatest we/ants do care.

I hope we get there one day, albeit through secular means.

You didn’t wrote that to imply that we should only get there through secular means(, by fighting other paths), but i find interesting that we fight communism and islamism : apart from these two, and royalism, do you know of a single large ideology that survived the colonization and isn’t the western one of a constitutional capitalist secular republic ?
I wrote about these communities with their own rules because i feel that we’re unfortunately looking for unity at the expense of diversity, instead of looking for a permanent peace in harmony, ensuring both our unity and our diversity, we’re not looking towards this direction, and there’s even this selfish nationalism saying that it’s not our role to help each other, i can’t like it, we should aim to live together.

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).

Fair enough, i’ll just point out that with such enhanced surveillance it’d be even more difficult than currently(, and ideally impossible,) for people loyal(, or hostile,) to Trump to cheat the election. Thanks for the chat

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.

(i didn’t know that, it’d require more researchs than i did on the claims of each side, they’d perhaps say that the coverage was insufficient).
In my opinion we don’t have anything to lose by strengthening our electoral system, and every accusation is an occasion to improve it, unless you think that it is already failproof, i’ve seen long lists of arguments at the end of 2020, but John Oliver also made three videos on the topic of fraud prior to that, and our side didn’t hesitate to have doubts twice on the results for Bernie Sanders, whether it happened or not, i do think that cheating is a serious possibility and that such claims should be solved by better measures to please the future candidates/incumbents, instead of only relying on censorship(, youtube, facebook, twitter, …). To sum up, he did commit to a peaceful transition, and we don’t have much to lose by implementing an even stronger surveillance of the procedure for the next elections.

You’re evidently right, but many articles for the 2021 elections(, 1, 2, 3, …, including the one cited), said that it has been 15 years since the EU sent observers.

In any case i would like to emphasised that this debate isn’t useful : even if westerners systematically sent observers they would still claim that the results are illegitimate because of the overall process(, which deserve some explanations/debates because our own system is far from perfect, and we’re blending the consequences&causes of the sanctions, etc.). I should have deleted this post like i intended at first once i realized that.

A few more minutes of research wielded these results :

• EU won’t send observervation mission in Bangladesh : https://www.thedailystar.net/news/bangladesh/news/eu-wont-send-observeration-mission-3424326
• The United States, European Union, France and Japan say they have no plans to send electoral observers or to provide assistance to Cambodia : https://www.rfa.org/english/news/cambodia/election-international-observers-03312023140751.html
• The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) will not send observers to Russia’s upcoming elections for the first time in nearly three decades : https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-elections-osce-observers/31393760.html(, “The insistence of the Russian authorities on limiting the number of observers we could send without any clear pandemic-related restrictions has unfortunately made today’s step unavoidable. The OSCE had been invited to observe the Russian elections, but the number of allowed observers was later restricted to 60 due to what Russian authorities cited as the deteriorating pandemic situation in the country. (…) The OSCE had assessed earlier this year that it needed 80 long-term and 420 short-term observers.”)
• The European Union has scrapped plans to send observers to a parliamentary election in Ethiopia next month : https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/eu-scraps-plan-observe-ethiopia-election-2021-05-04(, criticism of their official reasons here https://euobserver.com/opinion/152293 : « The International Republican Institute and National Democratic Institute sent missions to observe, and the African Union sent 120 observers. Yet the EU decided against sending a delegation, despite promises earlier in the year to do so. (…) The African Union’s observer team has praised the election, as have ambassadors from Sweden and Denmark. », that’s exactly an example of what i’m talking about, with false excuses/pretexts.

I didn’t write that we refused to send international observers to Russia, but that « i’ve read such suspicions about Russia and Iran, we even showed videos of a ballon in front of the c.c.t.v. for Russia », despite « the reasoning that when you’re so overwhelmingly popular there’s no need to miscount the votes in your favor ».
It appears that we did send international observers(, until 2021), but my point is that it wasn’t necessary, yet we’re still showing suspicions(, e.g. the balloon in front of a c.c.t.v. to take an example).

I’d just like to end by saying once again that this whole debate is pointless because it doesn’t change anything in the end, whether we systematically refused to send observers, or always sent them while accusing the whole “democratic” process instead(, it’s apparently in-between, but much more the latter than the former, contrary to what i initially thought).
I should have deleted this post from the start like i first intended once i realised, in the selftext, that « In the end sanctions would stay in place so it wouldn’t be useful in any way, and doesn’t matter, i should probably delete this post but i’m leaving it in the off-chance that some find an interest in it. »

Sorry if you felt that i wasted your time.

When you look at the amount of suffering other countries in the region, all anti-zionists, had/have to go through, i won’t blame some of them to conclude that it’d be better for everyone to just draw a line on the past and accept Israel.
They may think that they’re entitled to something in exchange, but that they’re not united/strong enough to impose their will or ‘reject their alliance with’/‘put more&more pressure on’ the west. So be it then if it’s a sacrifice worth making.

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 ?

I can’t find this source again(, when they said that they lacked time to send observers), it wasn’t talked much at the time, but i’m positive it happened, here’s an example of refusal for 2020 though : https://www.theglobeandmail.com/world/article-eu-says-it-wont-send-observers-to-monitor-venezuelan-election-due-to/
Apparently, they’ve agreed to send observers in 2021 : https://www.postguam.com/the_globe/world/maduro-electoral-observers-from-eu-delegation-of-spies/article_8df8438a-50d1-11ec-b8be-13b5cf9ed4e5.html
The last time was in 2015, once again at the request of the venezuelan government : https://www.eeas.europa.eu/node/26227_en
Some people say that the government won’t ask again in 2024 : https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/venezuela-will-not-allow-eu-election-observers-2024-vote-lawmaker-2023-07-13/
But i’ve clearly overestimated the impact : Venezuela will still be sanctioned and the public opinion will still consider that they’re miscounting the votes. Allowing international observers or not doesn’t change anything in the end, we’ll only be satisfied once the socialist revolution is out, and will continue to accept unsatisfying electoral conditions with our allies(, e.g., in Africa).
You’ll need to read pro-venezuelans medias to see the other point of view.

As for Russia, you’ll mostly find articles saying that his disapproval rate is at an all-time high, but this kind of article, or statista, are confirming that he’s one of the most popular president in the world. I could easily find more sources for this, so the reasoning is that when you’re so overwhelmingly popular there’s no need to miscount the votes in your favor :

Are you unsatisfied with the sources or my conclusions ?

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.

If he’s re-elected then perhaps that international observers with an absence of electronic voting could be approved by both sides and prevent such doubts from being formulated again. Observers may be considered humiliating for a great power but could perhaps be generalised to every representative republic, if only in order to prevent such excuses ?

Yeah, i know, i’m paid a lot

But don’t you find it interesting to challenge our preconceptions ? To learn how to defend our beliefs ?

I think i could almost defend all of our declared enemies if you’re uneasy with Russia, and criticize almost all of our allies. In the end i believe that we(sterners) are the one launching hostilities, and that a world peace is desirable&possible.

But if you don’t mind i’d like to try convincing someone that our point of view is erroneous, even if i won’t insist if you don’t feel like talking about that.

Do you know why we consider that some states are illegitimate “regimes” ? Do they deserve it for human rights or are they just annoying because they’re opposing our hegemonic expansion/uniformisation(, first anti-communist, now anti-islamist, then whatever else survived the colonization) ?
It doesn’t seem that we’ll be able to play the policemen of the world for long, yet inequalities between countries aren’t being reduced, since they’re increasing then perhaps that our control could go on for centuries ?

(And on your argument about legitimacy it may be more honest to talk about what precedes the votes rather than the votes themselves if the latter were counted correctly, no ?)

I’m glad to talk with someone “normal” like you, it’s actually becoming quite rare on Lemmy :)

Would you mind giving me a single thing that Russia has and we have not ? Media control ? Political prisoners ? Excessive laws ? Unsatisfactory election process ? What else ?

Keep in mind that the recent arrests were done in times of war, not only under a ukrainian pressure but quite a lot of other stuff like sanctions, covert actions, a blown-up gazoduc, …, Ukraine did hundreds of times worse and it’s not always justified, but surely you can easily find other proofs of Russia’s dictatorship to make me see the light ? I would unironically feel indebted to you if you took the time to correct me from my misconceptions, and we could take another country if you prefer.

Our media are controlled by capitalists(, except public&alternative medias).

We have a long list of political prisoners, it doesn’t stop at J.Assange, we’re also wiretapped among other measures to prevent any revolution.

We have laws against extremists or domestic terrorists, also against illegal speeches, more and more on the Internet. Could be worse, isn’t going to be better apparently.

Please tell me what you’re thinking about that makes them a dictatorship and not us.

Because the votes are counted in a wrong way, or because he got rid of the opposition, or because he’s controlling the medias ? The first one is false, even western surveys confirmed his support, but the second and third one could be debated, yet it gets interesting since we could throw the same accusations at our own countries(, it’s very difficult to launch a new political party in France since you need an agreement from hundreds of mayors who reserve them to mainstream candidates, and almost impossible to be known without at least a bit of support from mainstream(legacy) medias, Internet could perhaps change that one day but we’re not (t)here yet).

I’m 100% sure for Venezuela and could find you the source, Europe said they didn’t have time despite being asked more than 6 months prior to the elections(, and still having 1-2 months ahead of them).
For Syria i’m almost certain, but i think that i could find the same for Cuba, probably Zimbabwe and in any case i’ve read such suspicions about Russia and Iran, we even showed videos of a ballon in front of the c.c.t.v. for Russia, even if the surveys proved that V.Putin’s support was/is legitimate, on which country would you like sources ?
In general, every government qualified as a “regime” is considered as cheating at elections, i don’t see an exception.

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.