Comments by "Lepi Doptera" (@lepidoptera9337) on "'A constant fear of persecution and death' | James O'Brien - The Whole Show" video.

  1. One should probably point out that life in basically every country in the Middle East is dominated by "a constant fear of persecution and death". It's not particularly limited to Israel, Gaza or the West Bank. That fear might be less in the rich Gulf states than in Syria or Lebanon or Iran, but it is there. It's a design element of autocratic governments that dominate the region. No individual is ever completely safe if they decide not to conform.
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  2. The King David Hotel is an interesting example of selective historical amnesia. The perpetrators gave ample warning that an explosion would occur, yet the hotel was not evacuated by the authorities in charge. Anybody who doesn't mention that has an obvious agenda that does not shy away from falsifying history. As far as Israel's actions now are concerned... they make perfect sense. The Israeli state has a responsibility to keep its citizens safe, even at the expense of the lives of those who threaten them. That is the standard definition of the powers of the sovereign state. It can respond with absolute and even unreasonable violence (that's the standard definition of war, if you like) to protect itself and those who form it. We may wish to live in a world where such arrangements are unnecessary, but recent events (not just in Gaza) have proven beyond any doubt that we don't.
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  3. Palestinians didn't have to live in constant fear. They were offered a two-state solution over and over again and they always turned it down violently. The individual Palestinian could have left Gaza a long time ago. It wasn't "a prison" as many describe it. The main mistake these people have made was to chose stubborn insistence of being the continuous collective victims of history over a practical solution to individual happiness.
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  4. It might have something to do with the fact that they were actually persecuted for 2500 years...
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  5. The state of Israel persecutes these acts as ordinary crimes and, if they are organized, as acts of terrorism. That's no more and no less than what it is doing against Hamas, right now.
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  6. I managed to become a physics PhD with undiagnosed ADHD. If anything it made my life more exciting. :-)
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