Former Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon, when asked to explain the apparent about-face that led him to advocate the unilateral withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, quoted a beloved Israeli pop ballad. “What you can see from there, you can’t see from here,” he said, referring to the shift in perspective he had supposedly undergone since coming to power.

Israeli-born Holocaust historian Omer Bartov invoked the same line when he was asked how he had come to view Israel’s ferocious assault on Gaza as a genocide. Living in the US, where he has spent more than three decades, he said, had given him the necessary distance to see the annihilation of Gaza for what it was. “I think it’s very hard to be dispassionate when you’re there,” he said.

Bartov did more than simply apply the word genocide to Israel’s actions: he shouted it from the establishment-media rooftops, making the case in a lengthy July 2025 essay in the New York Times titled: I’m a Genocide Scholar. I Know It When I See It. (He had addressed some of the arguments in a Guardian essay the year prior.) Bartov’s declaration cost him several close relationships, he told me, even though subsequent events have not only validated his analysis but further demonstrated the lack of concern for Palestinian suffering that has become prevalent in Israeli society.

His new book, Israel: What Went Wrong?, is an attempt to explain that indifference. The book, which was published on Tuesday, is a detailed account of how Israel was transformed from a hopeful nation that in its founding document promised “complete equality of social and political rights to all its citizens irrespective of religion, race or sex” into one intent on what he bluntly terms “settler colonialism and ethno-nationalism”.

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[–] 65 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (3 children)

Israel went wrong before it began. There is no way of displacing a population to create an ethnonationalist colony in a way that could be called "right".

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  • [–] 37 points 6 months ago (1 child)

    Note that several prominent Jews, including Hannah Arendt and Albert Einstein, opposed the creation of a Jewish state in a 1948 letter, warning of fascism and comparing the precursor of Likud to the Nazi party.

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  • [–] 8 points 6 months ago

    Opinion on zionism has moved over time. Zionism started out as fringe around 1900, but now its the overwhelming majority opinion across judaism.

    Also, 86% of American Jews (the vast majority of Jews -- about 85% are in the US or Israel) think Israel is necessary for the Jewish people. They may hold a handkerchief to their noses at "all the stuff currently going on", but israeli terrorism, theft, abuse and repression has been going on unbroken since the founding of israel and the nakba-- farther even-- since the ottoman empire withdrew from owning that territory for 800 years, even, at the end of WW1. They cant have it both ways. If they support the existence of israel, they explicitely support the existence as its been since it started. Since day 1 of its existence there has never been a humanitarian israel rooted in equality or basic human rights, and there never will be such an Israel. So that 86% (and sure, thats not all ) supports genocide but lacks the courage to say so. We can call it genocide-lite.

    I think survey results show pretty clearly that a huge majority want the outcome of genocide but dont want to be seen supporting it. They love the idea of Israel but find the deaths of other regretable, and are happy to talk your ear off about how its inconvenient for them and how afraid they are-- as if that could hold a candle to whats been done to the innocent people Israel wanted land from. Their theory is that the real vicitms here are them, even as a vast majority of them explicitly or implicitly support genocide, often from existences of day to day 110% safety-- more than any other minotiry group-- where they may only ever experience having to deal with a political opinion on a blog that they find objectionable, which they feel like they can then frame as a bodily attack on their very existence.

    What needs to happen is some form of adult government installed in the Levant, not the theocratic fascist ethnostate that is Israel. A violent ethnostate is going to continue to cause global terror and mass conflict. They cant be permitted to rule, because they have shown the world they cant be trusted to do it without rampant murder.

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  • [–] 17 points 6 months ago (1 child)

    Israel was an insane ethnostate movement long before they even gained independence. There's a reason why an overwhelming majority of former colonial states criticized Israel's existence during its very inception.

    Had the Zionist movement never taken off, Mandatory Palestine would probably have just become a regular old state like Lebanon or Jordan, Lebanon even has a pretty hefty Christian population right after Muslims, yet you don't see them in some constant genocidal warfare campaign against each other.

    Even weirder, Judaism itself was against the idea of forming a Jewish state without a Messiah for thousands of years, but at some point the radical branch became the overwhelming majority. Orthodox Jews are completely outnumbered by their Zionist counterparts which have transformed Judaism into a complete ethnic superiority cult akin to the Aryan superiority of the Nazis. You have to be born a Jew, you can't just join because you want to (unless you dedicate your entire life into it, and still with caveats).

    You'll see thousands of comments like "Anti-Israel is not Antisemitism", but at some point you need to address the elephant in the room. The current mainstream "Judaism" is very much an ethnic supremacy group by design. You can't effectively criticize Israel without pointing out that its actions are overwhelmingly supported by their citizens because of their religion. Everything they do in their eyes is completely justified because they view everyone not in their ethnic group as subhuman.

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  • [–] 31 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

    Zionism was a White Jewish Supremacist ideology from the very start and Israel was a White Jewish Supremacist and Colonialist project from the very start.

    It didn't become so, it was always so and always meant to be so, the only thing that changed was the feeling of impunity to push-back from Western nations as, over time, Israel invested a lot abroad into capturing Politics and the Press, into Kompromat gattering Honeypots such as the one headed by Epstein, and into in Propaganda, especially in Anglo-Saxon nations, thus capturing the political classes there and shifting Western public opinion in favor of Israel. As that feeling of impunity increased, so did they more freely, openly and violently practiced their ethno-Fascist (same variant of Fascism as the Nazis) ultra-racist ideology against those they very openly called "vermin" - Muslims in general, especially Palestinians.

    They have and always have had, as they themselves say, "Western Values", specifically late 19th century white colonialist values and early 20th century white supremacist ones.

    PS: And if anybody has any doubt on the White part of their supremacist ideology, just look up the treatment of Black Jews from Ethiopia by the state of Israel, which included amongst other things forced sterilization.

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  • [–] 15 points 6 months ago*

    This "what went wrong" line is liberal Zionists trying to launder the reputation of the colony.

    Israel was founded on ethnic cleansing and atrocities like the Deir Yassin massacre. Zionists literally spelled out the need to "transfer" the indigenous population of Palestine in the early 20th century.

    Zionists could rely on western media, policy makers search engine rankings and moderators to gatekeep and control the narrative and image of their colony. The difference now is that social media reveals everything directly to people.

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  • [–] 12 points 6 months ago

    Who would have thought that the lesson they learned from the Holocaust was to Pay It Forward?

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  • [–] 21 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (27 children)

    I think the "mistake" started with the formation of Israel. I can understand the founding of their state after WWII, and their desire for a place where they can live without persecution. But, the location was a huge mistake if the goal was "peace".

    Dropping them in the middle of their Holy Land? Automatic war for as long as they are there. Now, many are under the impression that they really are "God's Chosen People" and all of their desired "Holy Land" righteously belongs to them.

    I think what is happening today was the desired outcome of Israel's foundation. USA and UK were perfectly fine with the Jews and Muslims fighting to the death, no matter who "wins", whatever is left will be all the easier for them (Christians incidentally) to control.

    personally, I am opposed to Christians, Jews, and Muslims, to me there are no "good guys" to be found in the "Holy Land".

    ETA Israel is a nuclear power now, remember that when you propose "solutions".

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  • [–] 7 points 6 months ago* (6 children)

    1945: A part of Germany should have been disposessed, a jewish state founded on this territory, and this Jewish state given nuclear arms, in case any fuckin Kraut ever had "ideas" again. End of story. Would have saved Jewish people and the Palestinian people a lot of horror. Would have saved me as a German many fuckin bonkers discussions with German bigots who all are so conveniently defending a jewish state (not on their land).

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  • [–] 8 points 6 months ago (4 children)

    Israel didn't form because of WWII or because of Germany. The big aliyah waves started in the 1800s, and the Holocaust just accelerated what was already in motion. The Soviet Union, the Ottoman Empire, the colonized Arab areas of North Africa were all extremely antisemitic, just as much as Germany. The only difference is that Hitler made mass murder industrial.

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  • [–] 1 point 6 months ago (1 child)

    But it did... UK and USA created the state in 1948?

    They wanted Israel before WWII, but US/UK/UN formed it, and they did so because of WWII. The Jews always wanted their Holy Land, of course.

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  • [–] 1 point 6 months ago* (1 child)

    Nope, Jews were living peacefully side by side Muslims in Arab countries in pre-Israel times. This is confirmed by Holocaust scholars like Omer Bartov. Antisemitism is historically something deeply European. It has been exported to Arab countries. Most notoriously via Amin al-Husseini. Israel would never have been founded the way it was, i.e. as a jewish ethno-state or maybe would not have been founded at all without the Holocaust.

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  • [+] 1 point 6 months ago (1 child)
  • [–] 1 point 6 months ago

    it is NOT a European concept and never was.

    Yeah sure the nazis was Muslims and not Europeans. Yo are a dimwit

    Also, Amin al-Husseini, was NOT antisemitic because of Europe. He was antisemitic because the environment who grew up in was.

    Pure bullshit. Amin al-Husseini was pretty irrelevant , he wanted Arabs to fight for the axis but did not succeed most Arabs sided with the allies. 18k Palestinians volunteered . Yes discrimination existed but it is true that arab muslims and arab jews lived generally in good relation

    From an israeli source

    In 1884 the first Yemenites settled in Silwan and for 45 years lived peacefully and on very good terms with their Arab neighbors. It seemed that the people of Silwan, which was known to be a poor village, found common ground with the poor Jewish Yemenites that lived among them.

    Despite the attempt to depict the 1929 Arab Riot as a violent incident against the Jews in Silwan, it is clear that it was not the case. From a letter of gratitude that the Yemenite Jews sent to their Arab neighbors, we can learn about the devotion and benevolence that the Arabs have shown towards the Yemenites by undauntedly protecting them, and also about the amity and good neighborly relations that prevailed between the two communities.

    https://emekshaveh.org/en/yemenites/

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  • [–] 2 points 6 months ago (2 children)

    Actually, the Palestinian people initially welcomed the Jewish diaspora with open arms and were totally willing to live alongside them. But Zionism is a fascist ideology, so of course the Zionists could not live equally, they had to have domination.

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  • [–] 1 point 6 months ago (1 child)

    "Actually" what? I didn't imply otherwise... if every Palestinian moved to Egypt tomorrow, the war would continue... Israel would continue to expand.

    See "Greater Israel".

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  • [–] 1 point 6 months ago

    Your comment sounded like you believe Jewish people couldn’t coexist in the region, which is untrue, the problem is the Israeli state, which exists to be a proxy for western imperialism.

    My apologies if I misunderstood.

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  • [–] 1 point 6 months ago

    The mistake is that zionists decided to force a state on the local people instead of living along the locals are a single people

    In 1884 the first Yemenites settled in Silwan and for 45 years lived peacefully and on very good terms with their Arab neighbors. It seemed that the people of Silwan, which was known to be a poor village, found common ground with the poor Jewish Yemenites that lived among them.

    Despite the attempt to depict the 1929 Arab Riot as a violent incident against the Jews in Silwan, it is clear that it was not the case. From a letter of gratitude that the Yemenite Jews sent to their Arab neighbors, we can learn about the devotion and benevolence that the Arabs have shown towards the Yemenites by undauntedly protecting them, and also about the amity and good neighborly relations that prevailed between the two communities.

    https://emekshaveh.org/en/yemenites/

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  • [–] 0 points 6 months ago (15 children)

    There's definitely no good guys. If you read into the history of the region, you'll quickly realize that there was never a "rightful" or "righteous" ruler. The ancient Persians, the Romans, the Turks, the Assyrians, the Arabs, the British, and the Israeli Jews have all been horrid. Genocide, oppression, slavery, ethnic cleansing, terrorism, deep seated hatred, and the idea of "if I don't do fuck them over first then they'll come after me" is the norm in this cursed region.

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  • [–] 3 points 6 months ago (9 children)

    This is liberal whitewashing. There are colonisers and there are the natives who are being exterminated. Its that simple.

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  • [–] 0 points 6 months ago (8 children)

    That's precisely the issue though. You're dismissing important nuance and context for an oversimplified soundbites. That's just willful ignorance. If you're not even willing to entertain the idea of being honest then this conversation is not for you.

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  • [–] 3 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (7 children)

    Where is the nuance in the Nakba? Or the Deir Yassin massacre? or the Gaza Genocide? The Zionists stole the land and are exterminating the native Palestinians, either slowly, through apartheid and land seizures, or quickly, through mass murder and ethnic cleansing.

    Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar

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  • [–] -1 points 6 months ago (6 children)

    I think you need to reread the original comment you replied to because you don't seem to understand what my claim even was

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  • [–] 2 points 6 months ago (5 children)

    Your original comment amounts to "they're all as bad as each other so why even worry about it".

    Its another version of "its all so complicated" or "both sides are to blame" thats why I called it whitewashing

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  • [+] 0 points 6 months ago (5 children)
  • [–] 2 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 child)

    The problem is that statement is so sweeping and general that it isnt really saying anything. You could say that about literally any part of the world.

    Jews and Christians are "people of the book" according to Islam and the Abrahamic religions coexisted relatively harmoniously for millennia. The Jew hatred seen in mediaeval and modern Europe was completely alien.

    The rise in sectarian violence is relatively knew in the region and coincides, funnily enough, with the establishment of the European Zionist colony in Palestine.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People_of_the_Book?wprov=sfla1

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  • [–] 0 points 6 months ago

    The problem is that statement is so sweeping and general that it isnt really saying anything. You could say that about literally any part of the world.

    The statement could be applicable elsewhere, but it is most definitely applicable here. Just because it could be generalized that doesn't mean it's not true or that it doesn't hold value.

    Jews and Christians are “people of the book” according to Islam and the Abrahamic religions coexisted relatively harmoniously for millennia.

    I'm pretty damn knowledgeable on islam. I'm an exmuslim who studied the religion for a long time and I've also lived in Iraq and Syria, I've seen these things first hand, and I can tell you, that you're not even scratching the surface here. Your understanding of islam and how it treats religious minorities under its rule is very much incomplete.

    islamic scriptures (quran and the hadiths) are very explicit about the fact that islam is inherently superior to all other religions because it is the perfect word of allah. Those who don't follow it are going against allah, and therefore they are enemies of islam. The religion treats is EXTREMELY hostile to anything that threatens islam. Atheism is punishable by death, polytheism is punishable by death, apostasy is punishable by death, criticizing islam is punishable by death. There are dozens of verses and sahih hadiths that talk about how Jews and Christians are vermin who will try to corrupt the pure hearts of muslims with lies about the allah and his messenger. It specifically gives stories about Jews are lying backstabbers who should never be trusted.

    Like just take a minute and read these verses in the quran:

    https://quranx.com/5.51?Context=3

    https://quranx.com/5.64?Context=3

    https://quranx.com/5.82?Context=3

    Also take a minute to read these sahih hadiths:

    https://quranx.com/Hadith/Muslim/Reference/Hadith-2922/

    https://quranx.com/Hadith/Muslim/Reference/Hadith-2767d/

    https://quranx.com/Hadith/AbuDawud/DarusSalam/Hadith-4542/

    https://quranx.com/Hadith/Muslim/Reference/Hadith-1731a/

    This is stuff that makes Hitler blush. Antisemitism is a core part of islam, and always was from the very beginning. Pretending that islam is a great peaceful religion that got along with other religions is a delusional take that's only held by ignorant westerners who have a completely falsified image of the religion. This is the reality. islam has never gotten along well with Christians, Jews or any other religion for that matter because it's inherently against the religion to do so.

    The Jew hatred seen in mediaeval and modern Europe was completely alien.

    Again, this is something that's entirely false. Medieval europe was definitely very antisemitic, however, it was not worse than the muslim world at any point in history. This view you have of islam is not based in reality. Statements like this tell me that your knowledge on islamic history is very limited. The history of antisemitism in the muslim world was and still is just as severe, extensive, and chronic as Europe.

    The rise in sectarian violence is relatively knew in the region and coincides, funnily enough, with the establishment of the European Zionist colony in Palestine.

    I have no idea where you're getting your information from, but these statements have no historical accuracy. Sectarian violence is the norm in this region. That's literally THE defining trait of this region. You can't substitute actual factual history with ideological narratives. This idea that this region was all flowers and rainbows where everybody lives in peace and harmony while singing and dancing together before Israel showed up is not reality. That's a myth. The reality is that this region and the middle east at large has such a comically long history of sectarian violence that it make statements like this equally frustrating and silly.

    Before the modern states of Israel and Palestine and even the British mandate, this area was controlled by the Ottoman Turks. The Turks had a system of divide an conquer that they used to oppress all the non muslims and non Turks to keep the muslim Turks at the top. The Ottomans would employ tactics such evacuating entire towns when there's a war nearby, but only allowing muslims to go back, not Christians, Jews, or other religious minorities. They place restrictions on certain religious groups from migrating to cities that are culturally significant to them (like Jews being banned from moving to Hebron and Jerusalem). All of this while, these people are subjugated under islamic rule where they're treated as second class citizens. It's not religious minorities, even muslims from other ethnicities like the Kurds and Arabs got rough treatment. There were so many revolts, genocides, ethnic cleansing campaigns, and wars under the Ottoman Empire that there exist lists of lists of the atrocities that they committed.

    It's not just the Ottomans, if you go back to the Arab caliphates like the Malmuks, Umayyads, and the Abbasids, you'll see that they have a long history of exiling Jews, Christians and other religious minorities as well ethnically cleansing them, enslaving their women and children, oppressing them, and constantly going to wars with them in order to conquer them.If you go back even further, you'll see the Crusader states did the same thing with muslims, Jews, and others. Even the Romans did similar things.

    The reason for this is because religion in the middle east has a different place in society than in the west. In western societies, religion is seen as a personal matter. You believe what you want to believe, and as long as you're not bothering anybody else there's no problem with it. At the end of the day everybody has this right as long as they except the secular system of governance. That's not how works in the middle east, your religion is your whole identity.

    Your religion defines who your people are, what your public beliefs are, what your culture is, how open you can be, where you get to live, what your social status is in society, who your friends will be, who get to marry, how you get treated, and who's going to look out for you. If your religious group and another hate each other, then you have to hate the other group. If you don't then you'll be cast out and you could lose your place in society. You also have to assume everybody else from the other religious group is out to get you, and they will assume you're out to get them. If you try to get out of it by leaving your religion then you'll branded as a traitor and you'll be treated as an outcast or people will come to take your life. It's very serious, and that sort of dynamic is simply foreign to people in the west. This is why things like collective punishment, sectarianism tensions, and religious hatred are so high in the middle east. Religion just has a different meaning over there.

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  • [–] 0 points 6 months ago (2 children)
  • [–] 0 points 6 months ago (1 child)

    Pointing out historical facts is not racism you dimwit

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  • [–] 1 point 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

    Thinking the middle east is the most violent region of the world with blood thirsty rulers for thousands of year when historical facts shows that Europe and the two americas was the most savage region is racist. Still all regions in the world has period of peace and periods of wars

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  • [–] 3 points 6 months ago (4 children)

    thats BS. The turks made peace between a lot of tribes and kept the bloodshed down. Comparing them to Israel and pretending they are the same is way beyond the pale.

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  • [–] 0 points 6 months ago (3 children)

    The Ottoman Turks? Are you an idiot?

    The Ottoman Empire was one of the most violent and brutal empires in human history. They practiced slavery and had one of the largest slave trades in the world. They would go invade their weaker neighbors unprovoked to expand their empire. When they force the people they attacked into submission they'll take "spoils of war" and distribute them among muslim soldiers and officials as instructed by islam. Therefore, they would steal the land, loot possession, and enslave people and hand them out as rewards for winning the war.

    They would specifically kidnap and enslave young women and children either as servants or as sex slaves in harems. Everybody else gets a choice of either converting to islam or becoming a second class citizen under islamic law where you're forced to have less rights, less freedoms, face more discrimination, and harsher punishments than muslims. Oh, and you have to pay an extra tax that muslims don't have to pay (jizya) for the privileged of being oppressed.

    They also colonize the lands that they conquer. They'll kidnap and relocate the children elsewhere, they'll give special benefits for muslims to settle the newly annexed lands, and they'll forcefully exile or relocate the nonmuslims if they're in the way of muslims colonizing the land. Oh, and the conquered people have zero representation at any institutional power if they're not muslims, and they can't hold a high ranking position if they're not also Turkish. Therefore these nations were often ruled by muslim rulers who ruled had no interest or obligation for the natives, they were just there to serve and enrich themselves. Because of this, a lot of the conquered nations were subject some pretty horrid treatment.

    Turkish rule is so brutal that Ottoman history was filled with conquered nations breaking out in revolts, some lasted centuries because they would rather fight to the death and than be ruled by the Turks. The thing is that the Turkish reaction to revolts is so extreme that it's infamous in history. Instead of fighting to put down the revolt, the Turks would seek to genocide that society. They want to mass murder them, take their land, erase their culture, and pretend that it was always Turkish land. They did that with the Armenians, Assyrians, Greeks, Serbs, Bulgarians, Jews, and Arab Christians.

    The Ottoman genocides are some of the worst in history. The very concept of genocide was literally made to describe what the Turks did to the Armenians. This idea that the Ottoman empire was peaceful golden age is quite literally bullshit propaganda that's funded by the Turkish government. There's a reason why that empire collapsed, and there's a reason why every single ethnic group in southeastern Europe, the Caucuses, and the Middle East despises it with a burning passion.

    You would think that this something in the long past, right? But no. The Armenian, Greek, and Assyrian genocides are barely a century old. Turkey today still officially denies these genocides. They're still trying to genocide the Kurds to this day. Kurdish clothes, names, music, press, and language were outright banned until the 1990s. Even today, you can't call Kurdish towns by their Kurdish names, they can't speak Kurdish at any position in government, they don't true Kurdish media, and Kurdish children can't learn Kurdish in school. Not only that, but Turkey is also actively burning down entire Kurdish villages, they're mass arresting Kurdish activists and journalists, they're helping Azerbaijan invade Armenia, they're invading and occupying the Assyrian and Kurdish parts of Syria, they're literally illegally occupying and colonizing Northern Cyprus, they're trying to steal Greek islands and maritime territory as their own, they're constantly bombing Kurds in Iraq to keep them down, and the list goes on and on.

    They're the biggest menace in the middle east, and this is all just legacy that was carried over from the Ottoman Empire, who by the way is heavily supported and celebrated in Turkey. Not in some delusional sense where they have a different view from what it actually was, but not Turkish nationalists are actively proud of all the genocides, oppression, and conquering they inflected upon the world and they want to see Turkey do it again.

    Thinking that the Ottoman Turks were peace makers is so fucking mind numbingly stupid that it's painful to think that there are people this ignorant out there in the world.

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  • [–] 0 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (2 children)

    Oh the long winded "Palestine desnt even really exist" zionist guy wants to spew comments. OK.

    Give this a read.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_in_the_Ottoman_Empire

    And you call out the Ottomans empires slavery. They abolished slavery in 1840. England in 1834. The US not till 1865 I think. You going to go after England and the US too then or is it only an issue in selective cases where its convenient for you?

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  • [–] 0 points 6 months ago (1 child)

    Oh the long winded “Palestine desnt even really exist” zionist guy wants to spew comments. OK.

    If that's what you got from my comment then you really are an idiot.

    Give this a read.

    The article doesn't contradict any of the points that I made.

    And you call out the Ottomans empires slavery. They abolished slavery in 1840. England in 1834. The US not till 1865 I think. You going to go after England and the US too then or is it only an issue in selective cases where its convenient for you?

    The Ottomans practiced slavery for 500 years and had one of the largest slave trades in history. Playing whataboutism doesn't disprove my point, it just shows that you're dimwit who's engaging in bad faith.

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  • [–] -1 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

    Are you an idiot?

    then you really are an idiot.

    and you are a foul mouthed little bitch. I'm getting pretty sick of your constant ad homs in comment after comment. If you cant engage with words then be quiet. This place has rules for that sort of thing. You will follow them one way or another.

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  • [–] 15 points 6 months ago (3 children)
  • [–] 7 points 6 months ago (2 children)

    There were idealistic, non- (or at least less) ethnochauvinist strands of Zionism through most if its history, alongside the colonialist, genocidal factions. Those less toxic groups have been disempowered and marginalized, and now the thugs dominate.

    Some (and I'm among them) are of the view that, regardless of the benign motivations of some, the logic of colonialism and single-ethnicity nationalism will always cause it to reach this end state. Using an example from the Americas, there were priests among the conquistadors who opposed the genocide of the Aztecs. They were well-meaning people who wrote some nice books. The genocide still happened.

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  • [–] 2 points 6 months ago* (1 child)

    Right, Israel is the original sin of the post war political nation state concept, established under misguided but understandable circumstances as the least terrible option among a host of really bad options. The current apartheid state was not an inevitability, even if it was predictable. The world isn't perfect but it isn't evil either, and the goal should always just be to do better, not worse.

    This is why the current conversation about Zionism makes me uncomfortable. This awkward rhetorical alliance between the far right and far left is not helping anyone. At the same time, there are real and extremely serious problems which need to be discussed, but which are being blown out by the use of a completely overloaded term which has a long history I think many who throw it around simply do not appreciate. It's simply unnecessary, as there are many easy to articulate criticisms of Israel which do not carry the same baggage.

    Israel is subjugating Gaza, and arguably perpetuating a genocide, and that deserves a level of intellectual treatment which isn't drenched in language historically tied to neo Nazis, and this seems like such obvious low hanging fruit that I can't help but be concerned that it is intentional.

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  • [–] 1 point 6 months ago

    More concerned with Jews being called Nazi than anything else. So strange.

    There is no intellectual discussions anymore and that is the whole point. Even if there was apparently it would be about why we shouldn't call them Nazi instead of what they are doing.

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  • [–] 13 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (12 children)

    This was an interesting read.

    Especially his speculation that lack of a clear constitution (Basic Law was adopted as late as 1994 and is not a full-fledged constitution) and lack of clear borders contributed to Israel's fall into the current state.

    Too generous US "security assistance" certainly helped. If you can solve a problem with bombing without worrying about getting bombed, you may start thinking of war as a normal thing.

    Failure to contain the populist extreme right is another stumbling block. If there had been no Netanyahu (and his corruption scandals, and the court cases awaiting him domestically, filed a considerable time before the ones awaiting abroad), things might be different.

    Ultimately, I would say: Israel failed to install brakes, and failed to contain its greed for power and land. It had too much cooperation and still has too much cooperation.

    I don't know if there's a reasonable way out.

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  • [–] 3 points 6 months ago* (1 child)

    don’t know if there’s a reasonable way out.

    the way out need not be reasonable for the zionists. They are not due "reasonableness" at this point. Justice and peace needs to be restorative to the victims, not reasonable in the eyes of the criminals. The dead cant be brought back can they? How are zionists going to find a way out of that, beyond paying with their own blood? We're all open to their suggestions, but they arent even interested in coming to the table and never have been.

    and

    If there had been no Netanyahu

    Go back and read about ben gurion and the start of Israel. Its never been reasonable, they always knew they were using terorristic means, theft and murder. They used to be more honest about it. Netenyahu is just the latest in 90 years of these violent supremecist murdering thieves.

    https://www.progressiveisrael.org/ben-gurions-notorious-quotes-their-polemical-uses-abuses/

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  • [–] 0 points 6 months ago

    How is this any different from the mentality that the Israeli far right uses now? This reads to me like collective punishment. The reality is that Israel is not going anywhere. The country is already established and it has a big distinct population, institutions, and culture. You can't destroy it. Like what is even the thought process here? To ethnically cleanse 7 million people to counterbalance previous ethnic cleansing? That's just the classic an eye for an eye mentality. The goal should always be to see Israelis and Palestinians living together in peace with everybody having the same rights and freedoms, not to carry out some weird vendettas for some misguided sense of justice held by westerners.

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  • [–] 0 points 6 months ago (9 children)

    People often forget that countries evolve with time. No country will remain in its current state forever and no current projection is going to be constant forever. The circumstances around Israel are shifting, but all this means is that the country is set to move in a new direction sooner or later. As the current status quo shifts internationally, Israeli culture and politics will also shift to reflect it. Like most other countries, I think Israel will have a counter wave to the ultra far right. The new anti far right wave will lead to a more left wing government that will seek to undo the damage done by the far right and go after the ones who caused it.

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  • [–] 1 point 6 months ago (8 children)

    This is a fun fantasy, maybe the US can redeem itself as well... just kidding, they are going to double down just like Israel.

    The pendulum will swing! Of course it just keeps swinging to the right and not left. How strange.

    It is almost like a powerful group of well insulated people are calling the shots and they are determining societal movements through propaganda.

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  • [–] 1 point 6 months ago (7 children)

    This is a fun fantasy, maybe the US can redeem itself as well… just kidding, they are going to double down just like Israel.

    If you think countries have morals and feelings then you're a lost cause. Countries have always and will always purely act in their best self interest.

    The pendulum will swing! Of course it just keeps swinging to the right and not left. How strange.

    History shows otherwise. All societies go through cycles where the ruling party, ideology, or system gets replaced by something fundamentally counters it when it no longer holds up the social contract it promised.

    It is almost like a powerful group of well insulated people are calling the shots and they are determining societal movements through propaganda.

    Welcome to human history

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  • [–] 1 point 6 months ago (6 children)

    Gentleman's bet: US and Israel will not have a leftist resurgence in policy anytime soon.

    We will see the wealth gap continue to grow and accelerated environmental degredation.

    Propagandist will try to convince people otherwise but the truth will always be in the policies and not the feels.

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  • [–] 0 points 6 months ago (5 children)

    I think there's a flaw in your bet. Societies have to be viewed in their relative context, you can't apply some arbitrary standard that's based on your subjective whims. Each society has a different overton window and different issues. However, they all have an internal left and right wing.

    For example, if the Democrats win in 2028 and they manage to reverse 70% of the major Trump fuckups in policy and pass a few of major policies like universal healthcare, abortion rights, or raising the minimum wage. That's a pretty substantial policy shift, but that's still not a communist revolution that's overthrowing capitalism. Would you call this shift in policy left wing or slightly less right wing? If it's the former, then I would take you up on your bet because societies do go in cycles of going from one end of their mainstream political spectrum to the other. If it's the latter, then I can't take you up on your bet because nothing will ever satisfy your condition. Nothing will be leftist enough.

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  • [–] 1 point 6 months ago (4 children)

    You believe that societies naturally drift left and right. I believe that policies not perception determine this drift.

    The current issue that is dragging the entire world right is accumulation of money. This isn't changing without a revolution. This is not going to happen.

    All the major super powers will continue to pass policies towards authoritarianism. There will be no drift to the left except for propaganda that leftist will eat up while policies will dictate the future not feelings.

    Our last best chance was before the Internet got locked down by governments and corporations. The information revolution came and it did not end up benefitting left thought or even policy much at all.

    While I am optimistic about people, I believe reality is painting a very different picture than you are seeing in regards to society as a whole. I do hope your are right, but if I was a betting man (I am not, it is a gentleman's bet) I would have to say there will be no left revolution in policy anytime soon.

    I think a fair judgement of this would be seeing a decrease in the wealth gap. I don't think other measures of temporary rights or entitlements (think abortion or food stamps) are actually a good way to show a leftward policy change. These things are temporary and can be withheld or taken away.

    It is kind of like adding a sail to a car that is broken down. Sure you could get it to move if the wind is blowing right, but it is still broken. Universal healthcare has not stopped the rightward drift of Europe, why would it for the US. Isreal has Universal Healthcare and they are about as far from left as you can get.

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  • [–] 0 points 6 months ago (3 children)

    I believe you are making an ideological assessment, I am not. My assessment is historical. If you look at any society in history, you'll see that nothing is ever truly static. Societies evolve to their circumstances. There's always cycles of growth and cycles of contraction. There's cycles where a society is open, progressive, and tolerant relative to its past and cycles of isolation, conservatism, and exclusion. There's no reason to think that we live in a time where this is any different.

    In the US, for example, political cycles last about 50 or so years before they go through a major transformation. The current cycle started with Ronald Reagan back in the 80s. If you think what politics was like 50 years before then, it was the politics of FDR that started in the 1930s. Before that it was the corrupt Gilded age presidents like Cleveland that started in the 1880s (which is very similar to the politics of today in a lot of ways). Before that it was the Republicans that wanted to end slavery. I think you get the idea. The point is we're at a time where existing one political cycle and entering another. These are always turbulent times. However, history indicates that the new cycle runs counter to previous one. We're leaving a political cycle that was centered on gutting regulations, cutting taxes for corporations, free trade, anti unions, pro immigration, and so on. If we follow the pattern, the next cycle should be similar to the one started with FDR in the 1930s. There's going to be a real push for a lot social programs, raising the minimum wage, massive housing build outs, taxing corporations, and going after things like monopolies.

    We're already starting to see this now with people like Bernie gaining national traction and Mamdani getting elected mayor. There's still pushback, so the new cycle is not yet calibrated, there some positions that the public doesn't agree with that need to change. But for the most part? That seems to be the next phase of American politics. MAGA appears to be the final chapter of the Reagan era cycle of politics because nobody wants its continuation, people are eager for the next thing that will come after it.

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  • [–] 1 point 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (2 children)

    All assessments are through an ideological lense. I explained my lense which is examining policy and where it is heading. I also took a stab at yours which you have confirmed. It amounts to a societal pendulum, which is of course is my very reductionist view of it.

    It is a common but misleading trope on many levels but does have some validity depending on how you look at it. While on the surface this may may often seem true the devil is in always in the details.

    Take the forward march of progress on something like slavery. There are more slaves today than at any time in history. This is also discounting indentured service and a more extreme leftist viewpoint like underemployment or even wage slavery.

    There are numerous examples of this and I think they would challenge your worldview. Take another example like environment degradation. Even though the US has the strongest environmental laws in history (discounting this most recent administration) they still have managed to poison every human with forever chemicals and micro plastics. Not to mention other future catastrophic calamities like the oceans dying off or global warming set to displace billions of people.

    This raises an important criticism of a policy based perspective. Policies are not always enforced and can be also be used for nefarious purposes. Take the War on Drugs for example. Under the guise of a public health emergency the US grew their prison population to encompass 20% of the world's total declared prison population but only having about 5% total of the world's population. Of course, we later came to realize that it really was an attack on minorities which amounts to a slow burn genocide by the white nationalists.

    History teaches nothing about the computer or what things like the military industrial complex has achieved through rampant fascism around the world. While it can serve as a predictor of some human behavior it can't explain how to handle AI. I think this is where history can't help us even if it is fascinating to study.

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  • [–] 0 points 6 months ago (1 child)

    . I explained my lense which is examining policy and where it is heading. I also took a stab at yours which you have confirmed. It amounts to a societal pendulum, which is of course is my very reductionist view of it.

    I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with looking policy or the direction it's heading. It's an okay standard to hold. However, the standard doesn't actually contradict my point which is that societies aren't static. I disagree with the notion that it's pendulum. Societies do shift back and forth from have more progressive governments to having more conservative governments. However, the iterations of each of those can be vastly different from their predecessors.

    For example, FDR styled US politics in the mid 20th century and radical Republican styled US politics in the mid 19th century are both technically left wing, but they're incredibly different from each other and they have very different views and platforms. However, I think that's besides the point which is that change is inevitable. I think you can agree that this something that's difficult to argue against.

    It is a common but misleading trope on many levels but does have some validity depending on how you look at it. While on the surface this may may often seem true the devil is in always in the details.

    While I don't necessarily disagree with this statement in of itself, I do think it applies to you in this comment quite a bit. All of the examples that you provided are missing a lot of important context.

    There are more slaves today than at any time in history.

    This is true, but only because there's that many more people today. In the 1800s, the world only had 1 billion people, today there's 8 billion. At the peak of the Trans Atlantic trade in the early 19th century alone somewhere around 12 million to 15 million Africans were enslaved. Keep in mind, at the time there were other major slave trades that were just as big like the Indian ocean slave trade and the Arab slave trade. Today, most estimates put the number of slaves at 50 million people. So by absolute numbers, yes there's more slaves, but by the share of the population slavery is actually much lower than what it was back then.

    they still have managed to poison every human with forever chemicals and micro plastics.

    The vast majority of plastics and forever chemicals are produced in Asia. Asia is also the biggest polluter of both by a big margin.

    Not to mention other future catastrophic calamities like the oceans dying off or global warming set to displace billions of people.

    Trying to blame this on the US is just silly. Global warming is the result of industrialization which most of the world has gone through. US emissions have actually be steadily going down for decades now. Once again, Asia is the biggest polluter of greenhouse gasses, and the rates are actually increasing there. There's a reason why global warming has to be a global effort.

    Policies are not always enforced and can be also be used for nefarious purposes.

    Which is why you need to verify policy with actual data. Policy is still useful as it can tell you the political leanings of a society and the desires of the public. However, data shows how serious that society is about something or what the results were.

    Of course, we later came to realize that it really was an attack on minorities which amounts to a slow burn genocide by the white nationalists.

    While there's no denying that there a lot of racist motivations behind the war on drugs, I think the use of genocide here is inappropriate. Genocide is a very specific term that describes a very specific event. This term cannot and should not be used to describe any act of injustice or violence. That just devalues the weight behind it.

    History teaches nothing about the computer or what things like the military industrial complex has achieved through rampant fascism around the world. While it can serve as a predictor of some human behavior it can’t explain how to handle AI. I think this is where history can’t help us even if it is fascinating to study.

    This is a fundamental misunderstanding of what history is as a subject. We don't study to predict the future, we study history to understand the past. By learning about what the people before us did, what they went through, and what they achieved we can better understand ourselves by learning from their mistakes, their knowledge, and their success. We can recognize patterns from history that we can extrapolate on to the present to make educated guesses as to why things are happening as they are or what will happen because of what we're doing now.

    Obviously history says nothing about computers or AI. However, history is filled similar situations that we can draw patterns and lessons from. Take for example, the light bulb. Before them, cities you used to rely on oil lamps for light. Each city had a team of lamplighters that would go from one streetlamp to the next lightening them on fire and making sure they have fuel. This was an entire industry and a lot of people made their livelihoods from this. But when the light bulb came around, it was simply a superior option that was brighter, more reliable, cheaper, and much easier to maintain. When cities decided to electrify their street lights, there was an insane opposition to it by lamplighters and their industry. They feared that their jobs would be automated away and they did everything in their power to oppose it. There was a lot of lobbying to ban light bulbs, a lot strikes and protests, there were even instances of lamplighters breaking electrified streetlights to send a message that they were not welcome. Obviously with time, they lost that the battle and electrified streetlights are now the standard. However, even today there are some towns and cities in Europe that still have lamplighters as remnants of the opposition at the time.

    The point we have examples in history of groundbreaking technologies that revolutionized the world. We've seen how these intentions disrupted established industries and how much they hated and resisted it, how it gave rise to new industries, and how these inventions automated away the jobs of a lot of people. We can look to history to see what lessons we can take to best handle our present day groundbreaking inventions and how they're going to disrupt people's lives. I think it would be foolish to disregard history because there aren't exact examples. History doesn't repeat, but it does rhyme.

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  • [–] 1 point 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

    When you examine policy you start to see through the propaganda and begin to realize that the US and most of the world is not operating by the will of the people unless those people are wealthy and well connected.

    https://www.princeton.edu/~mgilens/idr.pdf

    https://act.represent.us/sign/problempoll-fba

    This is why policy analysis can push back against or sometimes even reinforce feelings and the propaganda that drives people's perceptions.

    I like how you say it is not a pendulum and then describe a pendulum. I am getting the feeling you don't like to be pinned down on any one topic. That is okay, but speaking in generalities is not the most useful rhetoric and one that I certainly engage in.

    I am not trying to write a thesis on the many topics I have brought up, just bite sized digestible viewpoints that you certainly don't have to agree with. If you would like more context I would be happy to give it to you as I have studied these topics for decades now. I don't claim any authority or expertise though.

    You are very much into the face of politics which to me is pure propaganda as I see very different motivations attached to actual policies and I certainly don't think the US has exhibited any leftward motion since its inception. One example of this is welfare. It is primarily designed as social control. So providing food stamps is not really leftist when the reality is it is used to suppress the people.

    I would say the founding fathers were very much proto-fascists with our first President well on his way to becoming the world's first billionaire adjusted for inflation. If he had not died his sixties he certainly would have.

    Our policies have always been right wing, and as I said before, even things like the civil rights movement was more of an appeasement than an actual change. We can see this in the most recent moves to strip away voting protections for minorities. If the government can strip these rights away so easily what does that say about these rights.

    I find your hand waving of modern slavery away a little disheartening. Also, I disagree that calling the War on Drugs a slow burn genocide somehow takes away from the meaning of the word. The US has destroyed millions of minority families at this point. The intentions were clear and the results speak for themselves. The five acts of genocide are below.

    Killing members of the group.

    Causing them serious bodily or mental harm.

    Imposing living conditions intended to destroy the group

    Preventing births

    Forcibly transferring children out of the group.

    This is just one of many genocides the US has participated in. The US is still actively engaging in genocide with the Native Americans by separating children from families to this day with boarding schools. Also, don't forget genocide with the sterilization of Puerto Rico and of course providing the Nazi party with aid in the extermination of the Jews.

    Forever chemicals and plastics were invented and proliferated by the US. While other nations are also responsible to some degree you can't deny this truth. What is even worse is the scientists at the time these chemicals were created had misgiving about the technology that industrialists where very aware of, ignored, and suppressed when necessary.

    https://www.propublica.org/article/3m-forever-chemicals-pfas-pfos-inside-story

    There are countless examples of this including global warming which was predicted at the start of the petro chemical revolution and later buried and denied by the US to such an extreme degree that people now doubt the science that was more or less correct since the 1950s. Your denial of the US hand in this is noted and also a bit confusing for me personally.

    https://www.americanprogress.org/article/climate-deniers-of-the-119th-congress-and-the-second-trump-administration/

    You seem to be offering a lot of counterpoints that reek of denialism. I am not sure if this is just reflexive of you or just a genuine lack of knowledge about what the US has done.

    I think your musings about history are pretty spot on. Your examples of technological disruptions are well thought out. While history doesn't inform us about AI it does rhyme as you and others have aptly put it. For instance, the parallels between how artists saw photography and how they view AI currently are eerily similar.

    “This industry, by invading the territory of art, has become art’s most mortal enemy.”

    -Charles Baudelaire in 1859

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  • [–] 12 points 6 months ago (1 child)

    It was a fascist ideology from its inception. We do you mean what went wrong with it?

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  • [–] 13 points 6 months ago

    Haven't read the book, but the title suggests things could have been different. That something happened to make things bad. If that's the argument, it is completely wrong. Israel could have turned out no other way. Extermination is the only possible outcome of a colonial ethno-state.

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  • [–] 2 points 6 months ago (2 children)

    Better to say "has become". The genocide is on going. We all just act as we can to try to stop it.

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  • [–] 1 point 6 months ago

    Theres open repression even in free speech societies too, that if you talk about this in too strong of terms, they will attack you and the people you love. The more they are allowed to continue, the more they will seek to exert global influence on all of humanity. They need to be stopped.

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  • [–] 2 points 6 months ago

    Israeli and Holocaust historian Omer Bartov is a POWERFUL Scholar! Kowledgeable about Jewish history! ANTI SEMETIC!

    -The BBC!

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  • [–] 1 point 6 months ago

    It is working as expected. Herzl was advocating for displacing the local people to create the state

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  • [–] 1 point 6 months ago (3 children)

    being vaguely on the right side of one of easiest human rights issues humanity has ever faced and writing a book about it does not make this guy an expert. His looking for causes outside to explain the zionists as victims and not owners and perpetratos is weak sauce.

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  • [–] 5 points 6 months ago

    No one becomes an expert based on their opinions or conclusions. In this case, he became an expert through his Oxford PhD, and subsequent 35 year long (and counting) academic career,

    He's a historian. Looking for causes is kind of his job.

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  • [–] 1 point 6 months ago

    He's an expert based on his formal education, his extensive academic research, and his long coveted career in the field. He's very clearly experienced and knowledgeable on the subject, and his words carry a lot more weight than some nobody on Lemmy who's just mad that some Guardian headline didn't meet your personal level of confirmation bias.

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