Navalny, Assange, Democracy

On the 16th of February, Russian anti-corruption activist Alexei Navalny was murdered in his prison cell by Putin’s henchmen. For me, this was very upsetting – both as a human being who values democracy, and as someone who is half-Russian and genuinely would wish to see Russia as a free democracy that fulfils its potential.

Every morning, while I do stuff, I like having a YouTube podcast on – toldinstone, Ordinary Things, Epimetheus, The Critical Drinker, KDH, ПостРоссия, BadComedian… I think everyone has those kind of go-to channels. One of those channels is the Russel Brand channel.

I don’t always agree with Russel Brand’s conclusions, but what I love about him is his ability to respectfully listen to views of those he interviews even if he doesn’t agree with them, and the fact that when he delivers us the news, he always relies on various sources and references (which he always shows) – basically, when delivering the news, he does the job that legacy media doesn’t do.

Upon Navalny’s murder, Russel Brand brought up a very good comparison between Alexei Navalny and Julian Assange. Basically, Julian Assange is the Western equivalent of Alexei Navalny, and all the praise given right now to Navalny also applies to Assange.

Now, is there much more freedom in the West than in Russia? Obviously! Russia is much less tolerant to criticism and it’s way easier to find yourself in prison in Russia than in the US, Britain, or Germany. However, what worries me is that the politicians who head the West right now, while criticising Russia, are doing more and more to make the West look like Russia.

Biden! The man criticising Putin for invading Ukraine and for murdering Navalny also supported the Iraq War and demands that Assange be extradited to the US.

And no, I’m not turning to “whataboutism” – a trick Russian media often uses to justify its behaviour. “Oh, the US invaded Iraq, so we can invade Ukraine.” No, that’s not the case. The invasion of Ukraine is a crime, the murder is Navalny is a crime, and Putin’s behaviour is of a tyrant who completely lost his mind and feels that he’s beyond all accountability. This isn’t the first time that Putin murders someone who criticises him – Anna Politkovskaya, Boris Nemtsov, Natalya Estemirova, and Alexei Navalny are only four of many names that were murdered for criticising Putin and his environment.

However, what should be worrying for us is that while expressing criticism of Putin, the political leaders in the West seem to be mimicking. Recently, the EU Digital Services act kicked in. On the surface, those rules are supposed to hold the large social media companies accountable for “hate speech” spread online. In reality, this is a dangerous tool meant to curb freedom of speech. The main thing is, who decides what constitutes “hate speech”? What is “hate speech”? All the talk about “protecting citizens”… protecting from what?

And what legacy media does is use divisive rhetoric in order to brainwash the people to support things that essentially work against their own interests. If you criticise Biden and his pro-war record, you’re automatically accused of being a Trump supporter; if you support Britain leaving the US, you’re automatically branded as a right-winger (even though it was the Old Labour left that made the original case against EU membership); if you oppose the persecution of Assange, you’re accused of being a conspiracy theorist; when Polish farmers protest Ukrainian gain flooding the market under EU regulations (which hurts the Polish economy), they’re being accused of racism towards Ukrainians; and when you criticise the way Trudeau tried to brand the truckers who were protesting the COVID-19 mandates as “racist” (which is hilarious, considering the fact he himself appeared in “blackface”), you get accused of being a Nazi sympathiser.

In June 2022, UK Home Secretary Patel approved the extradition of Julian Assange to the US. His main crime is exposing the proof that the political elite is entirely driven by their personal financial gain, including shares with weapon manufacturers and contractors. He exposed things like Hilary Clinton getting the questions in advance before her debate with Bernie Sanders, cases of civilians being killed in Iraq and Afghanistan being swept under the rug, corruption in the France-UAE arms deal, Britain and Saudi Arabia trading votes to support each other’s election into the United Nations Human Rights Council, torture in Guantanamo Bay… WikiLeaks showed us more than ever how our democracies are being corrupted by interests that are kept secret from the public.

Assange’s team started an appeal process against the extradition, and unless the judges do something about it, in March, Julian Assange will be extradited. Will the appeal work? I highly doubt it. When looking at the history of the judges appointed to rule over the process, I can’t but fear that this is nothing but a show trial. Judge Jeremy Johnson has previously worked for the MI6 and the Ministry of Defence, while judge Victoria Sharp has links to the Conservative Party. I still have hope that the UK hasn’t completely deteriorated to the level of Putin’s Russia, and that the judges will rule against Assange’s extradition.

It seems that the next victim after Navalny and Assange is democracy itself.

Do we even have Taiwan’s back in this?!

“The Biden administration has grown increasingly anxious this summer about China’s statements and actions regarding Taiwan.” – The New York Times

No shit, Sherlock! Russia, North Korea… they’re all China’s little lapdogs. Russia’s vile attack against Ukraine was the dress rehearsal for what China plans to do to Taiwan.

The question is, considering the strong financial ties the Biden family has with China… sure, Biden would read a vague statement condemning the attack of a teleprompter, but would he actually do something about it? I doubt it.

And before the “But Trump…” brigade jumps up, I’d pick a Democrat over a Republican any day of the week. And yes, Trump was terrible, but how long is the whole “but at least he’s not Trump” thing going to work?

Why is it that whenever the Democrats win, their voters fall into a coma? Why is it that the left doesn’t hold its leaders to its own standards?

How come only when Trump won the left started speaking against putting migrant kids in cages at the border? Why wasn’t the left talking about it when Obama started doing it in the first place?

How come the left rebelled against war-criminal Bush over Iraq, and rightfully so, but then fell asleep while Obama was bombing more countries than Bush… and then elected pro-Iraq War Clinton and pro-Iraq War Biden as party leaders?

America is the coolest country ever! When it comes to cultural and technological contribution… only the ancient Greeks, the Roman Empire, Renaissance Florence, and the British Empire can compare.

And it saddens me to see how politicians in America not only refuse to acknowledge China’s regime as a threat… but willingly help it! The WHO Covid-19-lab cover-up would’ve been impossible without US politicians who are funded by companies with Chinese ties.

Taiwan is an ally, a democracy, a brave nation with a huge threat constantly looming over it. And not only do the people of Taiwan not get the support they need… they get constantly back-stabbed by the West!

What was Nixon thinking when he recognised communist China as “one China”?? What was Blair thinking when he gave Hong Kong to communist China (against the wishes of its people, who would prefer independence or to unite with Taiwan)?

Less business with China, more business with Taiwan – China’s financial strength comes from being the biggest slave-market in the world. The less you use that slave market, the less strength it will have.

The Jerusalem March? The Israeli “Blackshirts” and “Brownshirts”

You know the fascist marches that the “Brownshirts” and the “Blackshirts” organised in the 1920s? Well, Israeli fascists have their own yearly equivalent – it’s called the Jerusalem March.

On paper, it’s a March to celebrate the “reunification” on Jerusalem. In reality, the Palestinians who live in East Jerusalem suffer from abuse, discrimination, and don’t want to be under Israeli rule. Jerusalem is all but “united.”

The Jerusalem March is organized by neo-fascist settlers, and the main feature of the march is basically walking through Arab neighbourhoods in Jerusalem, waving the Israeli flag, and shouting racist abuse at Arabs while being protected by the Israeli “Defense” Forces. Naturally, if a fight breaks out, the only ones to remain under arrest will be Palestinian.

Now, what is the main ideology of those settlers? It is very similar to the Nazi ideology. How? First of all, they believe in creating their own Lebensraum in the form of “Greater Israel,” which means conquering the area of the mythical Biblical Israel and “purifying” it of non-Jews.

Violence against Arabs is welcomed, and among the “heroes” of those organising this march is the terrorist Baruch Goldstein, who walked into a mosque and massacred Arabs during a prayer in Hebron.  

They also oppose mixed marriage between Jews and non-Jews, oppose gay rights, and believe that Israel should be ruled by the Halakha (the Jewish equivalent of the Sharia Law, a backward set of rules that discriminates against women, gay people, secular people, and against everyone who isn’t a religious Jewish male).

Those national-religious settlers, with the help of the Israeli government, dispossess Palestinians of their lands (and when I say Palestinians, I don’t mean Arabs with Israeli citizenship who live in what is internationally recognised as Israel – I literally mean Palestinians who live in the Palestinian Autonomy, a territory that even by Israeli law isn’t a part of Israel) and create illegal settlements in Palestine (illegal even by Israeli law, on paper). Their end mission is, as I’ve already mentioned, to create a “Greater Israel” (which they believe will bring forward the arrival of the Messiah – yep, they’re that mental).

This is also a part of the apartheid regime imposed by the Israeli government against Palestinians. Israeli propaganda often likes to deny this apartheid by talking about Palestinians who hold Israeli citizenship and, at least on paper, enjoy equal rights (not in reality) – it is an intentional distraction tactic to distract the world from the fact the Palestinians who live in the Palestinian Autonomy have no citizenship, have no rights, and suffer abuse and restrictions under the Israeli military rule. Israel wants to distract the world from what is happening to an Arab in Hebron and Gaza (both in Palestine) by talking about an Arab from Haifa (which still suffers discrimination, but of a different kind).

A Palestinian living under Israeli military law can’t travel abroad, can’t trade with another country without a written permission from the Israeli military (which is almost impossible to achieve), and in many cases, can’t even get to a nearby village without passing through Israeli checkpoints and undergoing humiliation by Israeli soldiers.

I know Palestine isn’t a “trendy” topic anymore, but it’s still happening.

Forget about “working class” and “middle class” – now it’s high mobility class, medium mobility class, and low mobility class

I’ve been recently thinking about class definitions. A century and a half ago, definitions were fairly clear. You had the upper class, which was mostly the aristocracy; you had the middle class, who were basically bureaucrats, artisans, teachers, doctors, and well-to-do business owners; and you had the working class, which was associated with physical labour.

Obviously even then it wasn’t always so definite. For example, a self-made millionaire was considered “upper class” by many, but the aristocracy looked down upon them because… you know, working for your wealth was considered embarrassing for them, while inheriting it was considered honourable. Go figure!

We can see in The Great Gatsby how “new money” was considered to be an insult… it’s funny, because if you think about it, “old money” is actually closer to be an insult, because it implies you simply inherited your money and doesn’t take into account that even if you inherit money, you still need to use your brains in order to not squander it all away.

And of course, there were different approaches to the relations between the classes. There were the upper-class conservatives who opposed social mobility and believed that any attempt to move up the social ladder is an attack on god (what a convenient “coincidence” it is that god wished to preserve their position without them having to work for it).

There were the radicals on the other side who later “evolved” (more like devolved) into communists who believed in, basically, slaughtering the upper and the middle classes, confiscating their wealth, and creating a better world, full of concentration camps and death rows. Of course whenever someone is stupid enough to actually attempt that system (USSR, North Korea, Cuba, China)… those idiots will jump up and say, “This is not real communism.” Well, it is. People using their own creativity and hard work to create something new and create a business stands against the communist ideology, that’s why the personal computer, the electric guitar, Windows, the iPhone, and the telephone were invented in America and not in Soviet Russia.

And, of course, there were the moderates, who resembled modern social democrats. Basically, supporting private initiative, private enterprise, and private ownership… but also encouraging social mobility through wide access to education, healthcare, and workers’ right in place.

But those definitions have become blurrier than before nowadays. For example, I’ve met shop assistants who live on minimum wage, but identify as “middle class”… are they middle class? Of course not, but are they working class either?

A century and a half ago, a self-made billionaire like Bill Gates or Elon Musk would’ve been looked down upon by the nobility, because, you know, according to the vision of the aristocracy inheriting wealth is more respectable than actually making it with your own brains and stamina.

But these days? The majority of humanity will, hopefully, agree, that Bill Gates, Elon Musk, Johnny Depp, Noel Gallagher, Paul McCartney, JK Rowling, Margaret E Knight, Debbie Harry, Nikola Tesla, Leo Fender, and Neil Gaiman… all of those self-made people… are way more impressive than, let’s say, Queen Elizabeth of Prince William. Queen Elizabeth and Prince William didn’t make their wealth themselves, they didn’t even make the effort to maintain their wealth (because protecting wealth you’ve inherited also takes brains)… they are basically glorified state welfare recipients.

So what defines class today? What is in common between wealthy people, like Bill Gates and Paul McCartney? What is in common between people who are not in poverty, but aren’t particularly wealthy themselves, like teachers or small-business owners? What is in common between a cleaner and a poor illegal immigrant? And the answer is… mobility.

Today, your power is defined by your mobility potential. For example, Elon Musk and Paul McCartney (both self-made men who used their talent to succeed), in theory, could go on holiday in any destination in the world whenever they’d like to, and they have no issue entering any restaurant they want – so they’re, clearly, people of high mobility.

On the other hand, an illegal immigrant or a cleaner are both pretty stuck in the same place, to deferent degrees, so they are people of low mobility.

Teachers and doctors, again, to deferent degrees, can afford to travel… but they are restricted by money, so they have to calculate when, and for how long, they can travel, which makes them people od medium mobility.

So in my opinion, modern classes are bases around the high-mobility class, the medium-mobility class, and the low-mobility class. And of course, as always, there are many grey spaces in between, like the high-medium-mobility class.

We live in the age of information, however… even most poor people, in the West, at least, own computers and smartphones, which means both a rich person and a poor person have access to information. What defines them differently is how far they can travel, how often, where they can travel, and what standard of living they can provide themselves wherever they travel.

So there we go, a more up-to-date definition: around the high-mobility class, the medium-mobility class, and the low-mobility class.

IDF Alexandroni Brigade Veterans Finally Admit the Tantura Massacre

In 1948, 200 Palestinians were massacred by the IDF Alexandroni Brigade in the northern village Tantura. This was one of many massacres committed during the 1947–1949 Palestine War.

Why am I bringing it up? Because after years of denying it and trying to harass and silence historian Benny Morris for bringing it up, the IDF soldiers who took part in committing the massacre finally admit what happened as part of the Tantura documentary by Israeli director Alon Schwarz.

Why is it important? The stance Israel takes in regards to its crimes and towards genocide in general is a rather hypocritical one. If Germany chose to deny the Holocaust, Israel would kick off about it big time, and rightly so. However, Israel doesn’t have any issue with denying its own crimes against the Palestinian population, and up until 2016, Israel refused to recognise the Armenian genocide in order to not spoil its relationship with Turkey.

Denying its crimes against the Palestinian population certainly can’t help the dialogue between the groups. Recognising what happened is a step forward towards mutual understanding.

I’d like to explain why most Israelis insist on denying the massacres during the Israeli Independence War (as it’s referred to in Israel). Israelis fear that acknowledging these crimes will somehow deprive them of the “right” of Israel to exist.

I’d like to say one thing: no country has a “right” to exist, they just exist. It’s not a matter of whether Israel has the “right” to exist or not – it’s there, and as much as most Israelis would like to deny it, so is Palestine. Palestine exists, Palestinian identity exists, the Palestinian entity exists, and occupying it doesn’t stop it from being there – but every day of occupation, of oppression, of humiliation, creates more frustration, more sense of hopelessness, and more terror.

Terror breeds terror – the terror inflicted by the IDF and the settlers in the Palestinian territories breeds Palestinian terror in return.

I’m extremely grateful the US exists, its contribution to the world is immense in every field imaginable (and anyone denying it as a hypocrite, because we all enjoy American contribution) – and recognising the terrible things that the Native Americans endured doesn’t contradict that, it’s just being honest and seeing the full story; I’m bloody happy Britain exists, for me a world without British rock bands and comedy shows would be a crap would – and yet people in England are fully aware of how the arrival of the Anglo-Saxons effected the Celts.

Even in pre-colonial times, the Mayan, the Inca, and the Aztec empires established themselves through genocide and enslavement of other – it doesn’t mean that people who identify with these cultures support genocide and slavery.

Again, recognising the bad parts of your history doesn’t mean you regret being alive, it just means you’re honest enough to acknowledge what happened and mature enough to move forward.

STOP THE RESTRICTIONS: Media sensationalism behind hysteria

I’d like to start by clarifying that I’m not an anti-vaxxer. Anti-vaxxers belong to the same “idiot” category as those who think the earth is flat, those who believe in alien abductions, and those who deny evolution. I’ve already been vaccinated three times against COVID-19, and my daughter has been vaccinated twice (she’s 9, so that’s the maximum allowed).

I could go into a long rant about how child mortality went down thanks to vaccines, but that’s not what this post is about.

Despite my support of science and my belief that anti-vaxxers are morons, I’ve been saying from day one: the lockdown and the restrictions are fascist. Period.

Remember how the media was coming up with bullshit stories like “people are falling in the streets of China and dying”? Remember? Apparently, The Anchorman 2 was not a comedy, as much as it was a documentary.

So this is an example of how sensationalism, rather than the search for the truth, are guiding the modern media.

And here’s the thing… most politicians today are, clearly, not very bright. That’s because most politicians today are career politicians, rather than moral people who truly believe in democracy and freedom.

Those politicians are the first to panic at the exaggerated stories spread by the media… and pass anti-democratic laws restricting our movement.

Here’s something to consider, clearly COVID isn’t going anywhere. It’s probably going to stick around, like the flu. Stopping people from going on holiday, attending concerts, and opening their businesses clearly isn’t the way forward.

How long is this whole thing going to last? How long are businesses going to be shut down, people’s plans are going to be cancelled, and levels of mental illness will rise due to increased depression and anxiety ?What, 5 years? 10 years? 50? Give it a break and get back to normal.

Did you know Israel Has a Memorial for the fascist Rehavam Ze’evi?

In two days, Israel will commemorate the official Memorial Day for Rehavam Ze’evi. So who was this Rehavam Ze’evi guy? He was a far-right politician whose whole political platform was based around the idea of expelling the Arabs of Israel and Palestine into Jordan, and creating a Jewish Lebensraum.

Fun fact? His nickname in Israel was “Ghandi,” why? “Because he loved his people”… which is the equivalent of nicknaming Donald Trump “Martin Luther King Jr.” Honestly, you couldn’t make it up!

Another “fun fact”? A television report from 2016 alleged that he sexually harassed and raped women who were under his command in the army. But… back to the point.

The ideology of the Israeli settlers and the far right is based on two main principles, one is to drive out Palestinians from their lands by seizing their lands a Lebensraum (please note that we’re not talking about lands that are officially a part of Israel, we’re literally talking about lands within the Palestinian Autonomy), and the other one is a belief in racial supremacy that warrants violence against those standing in the way of achieving the victory of the “chosen people.”

The fact Israel actually has an official calendar day dedicated to this guy shows that there are two Israels. One is the Israel that is shown in promotional videos to people in the West with the intention of creating sympathy for Israel and to get them to open their wallets… you know, one that claims to be “the only democracy in the Middle East”… and there’s another Israel.

An apartheid Israel. As a Palestinian, you get to see your lands seized for the expansion of another settlement, you will see your son jailed for confronting soldiers, and if settlers come to kill your sheep and stone your family… the army will either beat you up for standing up for your rights, or turn a blind eye while the settlers deal with you.

I’m half Jewish, I grew up in Israel… and if there’s one thing that irritates me is the way many people in the West are misled to believe that Israel is just defending itself. How the hell is building a settlement for religious nutters on Palestinian soil “self-defence”? You really must be daft to believe that.

Even if Jehovah were real, why would you worship such vileness?

The atheist vs theistic debate often centres on the question of the existence of god. First of all, be it Jehovah, Zeus, or unicorns… I think you need to be a bit mentally backward or heavily brainwashed to believe in any of it.

But nevertheless, let’s assume this is a real question… here’s the thing I don’t understand. “I believe god exists… hence god is good and I will do everything he says”… but even if god does exist, how does it automatically make him good or someone one must follow?

The Biblical god, Jehovah, is vile. According to Jehovah, it’s legitimate to murder someone simply because of their faith… like god ordering the murder of the people of Jericho or Moses slaughtering the Israelites who chose to pray to the golden calf.

According to the Bible, a woman who gets raped in the city is to be murdered together with the rapist, because the Biblical argument is… if it had been a rape, she would’ve screamed, hence it wasn’t rape. In general, clearly whoever came up with those rules in the Bible was a rather bitter incel… according to the Bible, it’s OK to murder a woman who wasn’t a virgin on her wedding night or committed adultery.

According to the same Bible, it’s legitimate to murder homosexuals or people who “violate the Sabbath” (whatever that means)… and even a non-Levite who “dares” to set up or take down the Tabernacle. Basically, according to the Bible, it’s legitimate to murder someone for daring to set up or take down a tent.

So what’s my point? If you chose to worship such a creature simply because he exists… it shows what a terrible and obedient person you are. Someone being powerful isn’t a reason enough to worship them.

Even if Jehovah were real, I’d tell him to go fuck himself, because that’s what you do if you’re a decent person.

When Ideologies Fail

The moment an ideology fails, its proponents often try and excuse the ideology by saying its founders were correct, but the ones who took over messed it up.

That way, its proponents excuse themselves from feeling stupid for supporting that ideology in the first place. They ignore the flaws of the ideology and just blame others for it “messing up.”

We witnessed it in Russia, for example, with the collapse of the USSR. There was a common narrative, widely accepted, that Lenin was the “good guy,” but those who came after him messed it all up, but it wasn’t the case!

Lenin was a scumbag, a piece of sh**. He was the one who started the Red Terror, caused a famine through requisition, and was pretty much as much of a dipsh** as Stalin and Trotsky.

Lenin initially shared power with other left-wing parties, the Mensheviks and Socialist Revolutionaries, two parties that supported democracy and opposed terror as a political tool… and guess what? Most of them ended up arrested and executed, after he had expelled them from the soviets and turned Russia into a one-party tyranny.

But this example applies not only to Soviet Russia! Often I hear people claim that at their core, all religions teach love and peace, and blame the crimes done in the name of religion on the humans who, according to that rationale, misinterpret religion.

However, this “logic” doesn’t hold water the moment you actually take to reading the Bible. I mean, the Bible literally preaches stoning homosexual and women who had premarital sex to death, supports slavery, genocide, and murder against anyone who “turns” on Jehovah.

I mean, the whole Exodus myth, when Moses slaughters those who prayed to the golden calf, pretty much set the tone for the Inquisition, Jihad, and all the evil that spawned from the three Abrahamic faiths. It’s the idea that it’s legitimate to murder people for choosing a different god (or gods).

In fact, I see a lot of similarity between the Soviet ideology and religion. Yes, I know that the USSR professed itself to be an atheist state, but was it?

Atheism is about critical thinking and rationalism, whilst in the Soviet Union one was either executed, sentenced to years of hard labour, or put in a mental home for daring to criticise its ideology. In the Soviet Union, communism became the new religion, with its own Inquisition courts, witch hunts, and the likes of scumbag Lenin holding the ranks of gods.

The Soviet ideology was just another religion, it had nothing to do with atheism. Just like the proponents of other religions, proponents and apologists of the Soviet ideology try and blame its failure and inconsistencies on those who came to represent it later, rather than admit that they’ve been supporting an ideology that has been rotten from its core.

Israel is not “the only democracy in the Middle East,” and no, Israel and Palestine don’t “fight for the same piece of land”

Mostly as a result of the pro-Israel lobby propaganda (and I will later explain why this lobby isn’t really “pro-” Israel), many people believe two myths about the Israeli Palestinian conflict. The first myth is that Israel is “the only democracy in the Middle East,” and the second myth is that “Israelis and Palestinians are fighting for the same piece of land,” which leads many to the false conclusion that one must prefer Israel in this conflict, because “it’s the only democracy…” and so on. As someone who lived in Israel for many years, I can tell you both of these statements are false.

First of all, Israel and Palestine are not fighting for the same piece of land. It’s not like they’re both contesting Tel Aviv, Netanya, Petah Tiqwa, and so on. There is a very clear line between the areas known as Palestine, which are the territories of the Palestinian Autonomy (or Palestinian Authority), which constitute the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, and the State of Israel.

In fact, the line is so “clear,” that Israel has never actually annexed the Palestinian territories, because that would require Israel to give citizenship to the Palestinian living there, and citizens get human rights, which is something the Israeli far-right government can’t have.

Saying that “Israelis and Palestinians are fighting for the same piece of land” is like letting the US conquer Canada (or vice versa), and then to say, “Well, they’re both fighting for the same piece of land, so it’s very complicated” – it really isn’t.

What happens in practice is that the Israeli army controls the West Bank, and on a daily basis, a Palestinian is required to go through checkpoints (not only to cross to Israel, but within the West Bank itself), long queues, and humiliation on a daily basis.

At the same time, part of the ruling coalition in Israel are parties promoting religious nationalism. Those parties actually believe in a schizophrenic idea that settling the whole area known as “Greater Israel” – a Biblical myth about a “promised land” which includes parts of Egypt, Syria, and Jordan – will bring the Messiah. So what does the Israeli government do, to appease those political parties? It creates illegal settlements in the West Bank, settlers of those who openly wish to dispossess Palestinians and fulfil their “Greater Israel plan.”

Think of the reality under which a Palestinian has to live. Seeing parts of your family’s lands confiscated by Israel for new settlements, getting abused by soldiers, and having your freedom of movement limited. What kind of reality is that? It breeds anger, and anger breeds irrationality, extremism, and violence. That is literally how after WWI the financial penalties against Germany led to poverty and frustration that gave popularity to such extreme and vile ideologies as Nazism and communism.

As for the “only democracy…” argument, is it though? Is it a democracy? According to Western standards, I really don’t think it is. I mean, in order to appease the fundamentalist parties in Israel, i.e. the religious nationalists and the Orthodox, gay people are not allowed to get married, a Jewish couple can’t get married outside the Rabbinate, there is no public transport on Saturday – despite popular demand – due to the Orthodox parties preventing it.

I mean, does that actually count as a democracy? For an average Westerner, hearing such things leaves them in shock, and surprise, surprise, there’s a reason the pro-Israel lobby doesn’t mention it in its donation campaigns.

Even if that “only democracy…” argument were true, does that justify a country dispossessing and depriving another nation of their human rights? I mean, surely that is a ridiculous argument.

Also, I’m not sure the so-called pro-Israel lobby actually does any good to Israel. When someone shows harmful behaviour, the last thing you should do is enable it. Oh, so you’re a drug addict? Here, take unlimited funds to buy drugs! Or oh, you have anger issues? There you go, unlimited access to guns.

The best thing you can do in such a case is take drastic actions to stop that behaviour. In my view, the best thing the West can do is actually stop financing and supplying Israel with weapons unless it negotiates peace with Palestine. As for now, Israel gets huge funds from the West, and sees no need to work towards changing the situation.