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Steve QJ's avatar

Welp, a few of the comments here are dong a fabulous job of highlighting the divide between how good were capable of being and how we sometimes are. I though there was only one topic at the moment that turned otherwise smart, sane people into ad hominem machines, but it looks like we have another contender.

I'll be going through and deleting some of the the most unproductive comments. C'mon guys, you're better than this. You can disagree. There's a lot to this conflict worth thinking about. But disagreeing does not an enemy make. Yelling at each other doesn't make your arguments more convincing.

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Peaceful Dave's avatar

I'm going to look at this from a very different vantage point that may or may not become clear.

About 54 years ago while in SE Asia I saw the Chinese as 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘑𝘦𝘸𝘴 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘖𝘳𝘪𝘦𝘯𝘵. At the time, outside of China they were in a state of diaspora. They could not own land and farm, so they became the businessmen who in some cases ended up financially well off, and they were despised for it. Sounding familiar yet? Largely segregated to 𝘊𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘢 𝘛𝘰𝘸𝘯𝘴 (ghettos). Sounding familiar yet?

My wife, raised in a land where bargaining is common is better at it than me. When car buying, I need to shut up and let her do her thing. For many years she thought I was saying "chew someone down" when bargaining since she had never heard of the rather racist "Jew someone down" that I grew up with. The Marxist oppressor and oppressed worldview where the names bourgeoisie and proletariat have been replaced by other tribal names. But the Jews may forever be seen as the bourgeoisie to people wrapped up in the idea that they are oppressed victims.

How does this apply? Back then, two of my wife to be's neighbors were the 𝘮𝘪𝘯𝘰𝘳 𝘸𝘪𝘷𝘦𝘴 to Chinese men who I got to know. One owned a restaurant in China Town (a story with that that I will save) and was a man of wealth. I've known several Chinese wheeler dealers thru the years. Between the first and last time I've been in China their economy and wealth has grown tremendously and they have become a military power destined to be the dominant force worldwide. 𝘛𝘩𝘦𝘺 𝘤𝘢𝘯 𝘣𝘶𝘺 𝘧𝘳𝘪𝘦𝘯𝘥𝘴.

Israel is also a military power with wealth. But there is a difference in that their enemies want to exterminate them. Even though the average Jew is non-practicing, they as a people rejected Mohamad as God's messenger and their haters will not forget it. They have bought some friends in the Muslim world, but as a Saudi friend once said to me, "Never trust a Saudi. Not even me." China is buying debt slaves; Israel does not have that power so they cannot extricate themselves from their fate. At least not on that patch of land and not for long if they appear to.

As the realtors say, "location, location, location!" They might have lived in peace if they had been given Utah, rather than 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘏𝘰𝘭𝘺 𝘓𝘢𝘯𝘥. I would like to be optimistic, but I think that that location sealed their fate. Meanwhile, the rest of the mob on the internet goes on and on with whose fault it all is and who is the biggest bad guy. I didn't bother to mention all of the terrible shit being done by the tribes; we know that. That is all very real, but I'll repeat, I think that the location is a cornerstone in this.

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