Every complex decision is a compromise. One could argue that even the simple ones are.
The universe is infinitely complex but decision, even conditional ones, are binary.
You either say or do something, or you don’t.
When I see a conflict, such as a man beating a woman or a child on the street, I will take the side of the victim and stop the violence. I can sort out the details later.
When you see two men fighting, it may not be obvious who is the aggressor, let alone who is right. It may be the apparent loser. Being the apparent victim does not make one right. Taking a stand is not that difficult. Making certain that it is the right one is what takes some effort.
When I have to make a decision based on incomplete or unreliable information I go with what seems to make the most sense, which is not necessarily what I will base my actions on. Let me illustrate:
The moments and circumstances
Most Americans who were alive when it happened, know where they were when JFK was shot. I remember where I was when 9/11 happened, but what I found most memorable was seeing the scene from which I clipped the frame above, Michael Moore’s documentary Fahrenheit 9/11.
It shows G.W. Bush, moments after he was told that the second plane hit. As I was watching it, I was overwhelmed by the realization that HE KNEW.
He knew, that his moment in history arrived. I doubt that he knew any of the details, but I believe he knew that something was coming. Quite possibly, he was hoping for something; he was waiting for an excuse, an opportunity to do what he was ‘destined’ to do. I do not believe that he was part of any grand conspiratorial design, but someone in his position does not need direct involvement in the acts that could fulfill his secret desires. It could also be that the desires were not his, but someone’s with a material interest in the outcomes. We’ll never know, but the quasi paralyzed, blank stare on his face spoke louder than words.
I had a similar realization on the 7th of October 2023.
My first thought when I heard the news was: How awfully convenient….
I don’t remember exactly what, but bad news was coming from Ukraine, and the Western media needed some righteous distraction. Raped women and butchered babies do just that.
Many questions were raised in the following days about the last-moment moving of the music festival and the unreasonably slow response of the armed forces but all of these were shut down as conspiracy theories. They were questions we were not supposed to ask.
As I was thinking about it, I could easily imagine a conversation between the Biden administration and Netanyahu suggesting to the later that if he can find the right excuse to do some ethnic cleansing, the US will be behind him.
It could be that Netanyahu saw it as an opportunity to realize his long-time aim to entice the Palestinians to go somewhere else.
It could also be that Hamas saw the war in Ukraine as an opportunity to make their move.
These are interesting ideas to contemplate, but not to discuss seriously as we will never know. That is the problem with theories. They may be partly or even entirely correct, but they are still just theories.
The drivers and motivations
I think we could all agree that the basic motivators of our world are money, power and ideology; and that in most cases they intermingle and can take many forms. Money can mean resources in general; power can mean control and security; and ideology can mean many things from identity to religion.
From the outside, 9/11 seemed to be about the ideology of Islam, but quickly turned into the power of geopolitics and the money in the natural resources of the middle-East.
From the outside, the Gaza war seems to be about the noble fight for the recognition of Palestinian nationhood (that is power AND ideology) on the one hand; the power to create a nation state with a clear Jewish ethnic identity and defendable borders on the other.
But it did, of course, quickly turned into a geopolitical proxy-war between the powers supporting the two sides; which powers are motivated in maintaining the conflict which gives them power and influence over the region.
There is also a significant amount of money that the Ben-Gurion canal and the recent of-shore oil and gas discoveries and we shouldn’t forget the Donald Trump construction bonanza on the Gaza shores.
The ultimate aim of the war in Gaza is the expulsion of the Palestinians. Not talking about the actual aims and motivations openly is dishonest.
The ideologies of the fundamentalist Muslims and the orthodox Jews are hardly even an afterthought. So are the touchy-feely virtue signaling support for the Palestinians and the accompanying rampant antisemitism. They only matter for the political power they represent.
All of this is kind of dirty, kind of ugly. In my posts:
The Jewish Solution
The Jewish question
The Jewish problem and the final solution
…I laid out all my arguments. I am still waiting to see a rational argument against any of them. The only way to solve the problem is separating the Palestinians from the Jews.
FOR GOOD. Then stop supporting both sides.
I don’t like to contemplate and write about this subject because it always makes me very angry. I consider my position decent, fair and moral, but I cannot get over the fact that I represent a tiny minority of those who express an opinion.
I take issue with the genocidal Jew-hatred because I take issue with genocidal attitudes and behaviour of any kind.
None of these means that I cannot see the problems:
I agree with Mearsheimer/Walt on the inordinate power and corrupting influence of the Jewish American Lobby. The whole system should be reformed.
“In a typical year, pro-Israel lobbying yields roughly $800–900 in U.S. aid for every $1 spent—a multiplier far exceeding most investments.” (grok)
I wish I could have such returns on my investments. This is obviously, and seriously wrong. The citizens of the USA should NOT be forced to support the conflict with their tax dollars.
Beyond the very real security benefits, Israel has very clear financial interests in emptying Gaza (the Ben Gurion Canal and the gas/oil fields.)
The war in Gaza is ugly, and it shouldn’t be happening.
The questions nobody seems to be asking are these:
Why is it still going on?
Why wouldn’t Hamas release the hostages?
Why wouldn’t the virtue signaling world demand that they do?
Why does most of the world want to keep the fight going?
Why is there so much support for the ultimate destruction of the Jewish state?
The ugliest aspect of this war is the genocidal response of the rest of the world to it. Supporting not just the current war, but the status quo that is hanging over the whole Middle-East and Israel with its perpetual war with the Muslims.
Ultimately, it all comes down to drivers and motivations:
The Jews want to survive, to have a defendable homeland and peace with its neighbours. They want to grow and prosper. They want to end the perpetual war and have the land under their control from the river to the sea.
The ‘Palestinians’ want to reconquer the land. It is in their charter. They do not want peace; they want total victory by eliminating the Jews from the River to the sea.
Eventually, one side must prevail. The only question for any us is not which one is absolutely right, but which side is more deserving of our support.
Where to stand is not a question in my mind.
If I must chose between:
the people who have the deepest historical roots in the land; the people who are smart, creative and industrious; the people who are ready and able to improve the land and prosper on it …
and
the people whose connection to the land is rather tenuous; a dysfunctional society of welfare bums and primitive genocidal fanatics; the people who are most likely to turn the place back into a desert…
…. In other words: if I must choose between the builders and the destroyers, the choice seems rather obvious to me.
I am still puzzled by the genocidal antisemitism that is on the rise. As if we have never learned anything from history.
I do not recommend it, but you may want to take a look at Caitlin Johnstone’s Substack.
She is a most virulent antisemite with an audience that is even worse, openly advocating the extermination of all Jews on this planet. The intolerance is quite insane.
…and just like the nazis and the communists, they see themselves as the good guys.
I have to say it again: this has nothing to do with what I personally think about the Jews.
It is all, and only, about being able to distinguish good from bad.
It is about basic human decency. A decency that humanity seems to be losing.
More from this stack
This post is an addendum to I don’t care about the Jews, in which I take a stand supporting Israel’s right to an ethnic state without accommodating the demands of the Palestinians. I will try to give a rest to this subject as I already said everything I care to say. Here are the links to the rest:
More from Substack
Caitlin’s Newsletter | Caitlin Johnstone | Substack
References
Facts Shatter Gaza Genocide Lies - FLAME
(I got their latest bulletin just as I was finishing this post)
Notes
I have an immense backlog of ideas I want to write about, but current events and new ideas make me rearrange them every week. I still see them as a continuum, slowly developing towards what I wish to say about conspiracy theories. This post is pushing back that one yet another week while I give you yet another example for my final points.
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Thanks. I pretty much agree with you. Do you know enything about Nick Fuentes? He seems to be making a comeback and I believe he's rather anti-Israel/Jewish.