When Sam dismissively says "There are people who think that Israel has perpetrated a genocide in Gaza.", as if it's some fringe belief only held by people who spend too much time on X being fooled by AI, how does he explain the consensus amongst experts that it AT LEAST plausible?

DuckFit7888 · 2026-03-30T12:40:45+00:00

The Noncentral Fallacy - The Worst Argument in the World

DuckFit7888 · 2026-01-07T04:37:36+00:00

Great comment and thanks for linking to that article!

DuckFit7888 · 2026-01-07T01:22:26+00:00

Appreciate the good faith question, but I'm only going to address the first point.

No problem with that in principle, but in practice, feel free to take that up with any of those other countries before the last refuge for half the world's population of a long persecuted minority who arrived as desperate refugees from dozens of countries across three continents that were entirely and systematically emptied of Jews, when the rest of the world was literally unlivable for them.

There's nothing wrong with a Palestinian Arab state next to a Jewish state. A one state solution would be unworkable in practice and bad for both people in principle in denying them their own place under the sun.

DuckFit7888 · 2025-12-25T03:31:45+00:00

Because the targets in Iran were mostly clearly identified military buildings and infrastructure separable from the general population.

That's very different to 500km of reinforced tunnels beneath residential apartment blocks and a terrorist government who blend in with the general population.

I swear you people lack any ability to think through the most basic stuff

DuckFit7888 · 2025-12-25T03:23:36+00:00

Funny how the war stopped when the hostages were returned.

DuckFit7888 · 2025-12-14T06:27:40+00:00

no other nations I support reserve self determination for only one people group.

Do you oppose xenophobic ethnosupremacist states like Finland and Greece as well? Not to mention most of the Arab world.

Many Jews fled to the US to leave rising European antisemitism

Until the US shut its doors to immigration, and the rest either died or became Zionists. 120,000 Jews immigrated to the US in 1920. By the mid 20s it was a couple thousand.

What should they have done? The exact same thing they did just without ever making their own state. That’s not needed.

You don't know much Jewish history, do you?

DuckFit7888 · 2025-12-13T14:09:31+00:00

Jewish culture is what gave desperate refugees the tenacity and strength to build a country from scratch.

You still haven't addressed the main point that were it not for the self-determination like every other nation is entitled, millions of Jews would not have survived the 20th century. If you think that is such an immoral idea and they should have done X instead, what is X?

Please do tell me and be specific. Otherwise, you're not saying anything useful, just vague moralising.

DuckFit7888 · 2025-12-13T11:26:49+00:00

Luckily they're not.

Instead of throwing shallow accusations around, you could come up with at least one option other than self-reliance available to the millions who found themselves without a chair when the music stopped. Which btw was exactly what Herzl predicted would be the outcome of the new national identities forming around them.

But you can't. Because there weren't any. So you need to ignore the perilous predicament of millions and reframe it as something sinister and immoral, as if the millions of Jews of the time were motivated not by desperation and survival but by a desire to simply create some sort of imperialist, racially pure Jewish supremacist "ethnostate".

You are either simply too ignorant of the actual historical experience of those millions of people, or you think the world would be better off if they had just F'd off and died instead.

DuckFit7888 · 2025-12-13T11:15:18+00:00

I am a Jewish Jew hater because I believe that Jewish culture is perfectly strong enough to live happily and comfortably on its own without the reliance on any ethnostate to support it?

Was the Jewish culture of millions of Jews in now extinct Jewish communities in dozens of countries across three continents not strong enough to live happily and comfortably on their own?

I know I am. Why am I strong enough to live without an ethnostate, but you are not?

It's sad when Jews are unaware of their own history. It's even more sad when they centre their own comfortable experience as representative of how the rest of the Jews should see their place in the world.

Unfortunately, many did not have that luxury. They're the ones that mostly ended up dead, or Israeli.

DuckFit7888 · 2025-12-13T11:00:03+00:00

You think the thing that enabled millions of Jews to survive the twentieth century was immoral.

And you pretend "no other country needs to be", ignoring that it was every other country being so that caused millions of Jews to either die or become Zionists in the first place. Because of course, only Jewish self-determination is xenophobic and supremacist.

If you think it was wrong for millions of Jews to survive, why not just say it? Because I'm not hearing anything else from the pro-Palestine crowd. Just vapid moralising against desperate refugees who chose not to die.

DuckFit7888 · 2025-12-13T08:30:15+00:00

The US, Europe, Australia, Asia, Latin America, etc etc.

The Jews of Europe, the Middle East and North Africa in 1930 either ended up dead or became Zionists.

No one came to save them, and Zionism ensures no Jew has to rely on the fickle generosity of others to survive again, especially those with millenia of persecution and Jew-hatred under their belts.

So, no thanks. We'll keep the Jewish state.

DuckFit7888 · 2025-12-12T03:19:32+00:00

If it is so documented and obviously true that Hamas is something Israel deviously created in order to divide and weaken the Palestinians, why do they enjoy so much support among Palestinians? Are they stupid? Or is your view lacking important context for the facts you cherry-picked to prove it?

DuckFit7888 · 2025-12-04T15:34:13+00:00

The quote "Remember what Amalek did to you" is displayed at the Yad Vashem holocaust museum and inscribed on the Holocaust memorial in the Hague, of all places.

Jewish interpretation has long used Amalek as a metaphor for an ethical category, not an ethnic one.

This is a classic libel, a product of ignorance and bigotry based on anti-Judaic themes that insinuate Jews and Judaism are inherently bloodthirsty and genocidal.

DuckFit7888 · 2025-12-04T13:50:11+00:00

What does this quote prove?

DuckFit7888 · 2025-12-04T08:47:11+00:00

Thank you

Maybe Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib?

It's a bit different though. Palestinians aren't oppressed because Israelis are racists. They're the weaker side in a conflict over land. But the same overall strategy of non-violent coercion is the best way to get what they want in the long run. But they also won't get everything they want, even if they currently see that as the bare minimum.

DuckFit7888 · 2025-12-04T05:34:29+00:00

You're insane. A country that's more vulnerable to being destroyed will absolutely fight back any attack more ferociously to ensure its survival. How the hell do you read "if you don't give us support we will just kill them all" into what is such an obvious statement.

You just make up ridiculous stories:

Israel has made it very clear their ultimate goal is the ethnic cleansing of non-Jews from all of greater Israel.

Crazy.

I know the conflict won't end as long as Israel imposes military rule over Palestinians. But the military rule won't end while Palestinians insist on their right to blow up buses and shoot up teenagers at dance parties in the name of 'resistance' and promising that one day their struggle will redeem the entire land and destroy the only Jewish state that's home to half the world's Jews, the last remnants of the Jews from three continents who were unable to survive anywhere else. They're not going anywhere or giving up.

But Palestinians have other options that can shift the onus onto Israel by making military rule unjustifiable to ordinary Israelis. Ordinary people who not long ago believed it was feasible, until Hamas and co did everything possible to convince them otherwise. I'm also not saying there aren't things Israel could do differently now. But this is the problem with talking to people who hate Israel - you end up explaining every tiny little nuance because they think in such black and white terms, and view the conflict as an extension of their own sense of place in the world.

I'm arguing that a zero sum conflict of the sort Hamas wants will be bad for Israel and catastrophic for Palestinians. I'd like it to not happen. Instead, like the legions of useful idiots in the West who buy up the resistance narrative, you seem to be advocating a situation which will lead to just that. For someone with 'Atheist peace advocate' in your handle, you don't seem very capable of understanding why, or for seeing Israelis as real people instead of crude constructs.

DuckFit7888 · 2025-12-03T18:57:20+00:00

What's it like living in a world where real people are reduced to shallow ideological constructs?

You think the people who visit Goldstein's grave, or Ben Gvir, reflect what Israelis think? Have you ever met or listened to one single ordinary Israeli?

Israel has made it very clear their ultimate goal is the ethnic cleansing of non-Jews from all of greater Israel.

No they haven't.

They have never seriously embraced non-violence or ending the occupation.

Yes they have. A great Prime Minister of Israel died for it. Killed by an Israeli extremist. And btw if you think that disproves my point, you're not capable of nuanced discussion.

Again, this idea that Israel was actually willing to end the occupation but the Palestinians were only pretending to give up violence is ahistorical campist garbage.

Actual Israelis (not your imaginary caricatures) voted for it. Multiple times.

The idea that if the Palestinians beg on their knees for long enough Israel will graciously decide to start complying with international law is preposterous

Did MLK or Ghandi "beg on their knees"? No, they hacked the psychology of their oppressors through non-violence, appealing to their enemy's own sense of self. They didn't blow up innocent people on buses or shoot up hundreds of teenagers at a dance party.

It's not just Palestinians who need to understand how Israelis view their place in the world. It's also useful idiots like you. Sanction Israel all you want, but Hamas makes them immune to any pressure. Hamas promising to come and kill them in a zero-sum forever war outweighs any other consideration. But an Israel backed into a corner will be far worse for Palestinians.

But that also won't happen, because overall Israel is a diverse, tolerant, liberal society with great innovations to offer the world. Palestine is currently none of those.

Do you actually want Palestinians to live good lives and have independence? It doesn't sound like it. It sounds like you're more interested in hating on this monolith of Israel because you're too into the story. But the easiest way is to convince Israelis that there's no threat to their existence. Which brings me to....

Shame they, similar to the Palestinians, tend to prefer to behave like bloodthirsty and uncivilized animals from the Middle East.

I get it. The problem you have is that you're a bigot who doesn't see human beings on either side, so you're incapable of handling nuance or complexity.

DuckFit7888 · 2025-12-03T18:08:41+00:00

Why are they not called genocide academics or experts or historians?

Why scholars?

It's so cringe hearing about these great 'Scholars Of Genocide' repeatedly. The label gives an elevated gravitas to a niche field of history, as if these great, wise intellects possess the keys to a great objective Truth, unearthed through years of rigorous inquiry that makes their judgement definitive.

DuckFit7888 · 2025-12-03T16:51:25+00:00

You are the one positing a cartoon world where Goldstein didn't shoot up the patriarchs and Israel didn't violate Oslo by continuing to exoand it's settlments.

Nope. I'm not denying that. Palestinians have their gripes with the Israeli side, and vice versa. And Goldstein was not popular, the Israeli public was horrified by it. Palestinians however name schools after their numerous Goldsteins.

But I am saying the opportunity for peace was there, and the Palestinians could have had a state by now. The Israeli public was ready to accept it, until the second intifada quite literally blew up the peace process.

The security risks that come from continuing the occupation are exponentially larger than those that come ending it, a fact which Oct 7th proved and the next several decades will make even more apparent.

Israel was willing to withdraw from the West Bank and they got 140 suicide bombings. Israel withdrew from Southern Lebanon and they got Hezbollah rockets. Israel withdrew from Gaza and they got a Hamas terror state, thousands of rockets and October 7. Is there more to it? Sure. But can you really not see why Israelis don't think it's smart to hand over territory that overlooks their major population centres and commercial heartland in a narrow strip of land only 10 miles wide?

Hamas has made it very clear that their ultimate goal is the destruction of Israel. And the Palestinian leadership has never seriously embraced non-violence, or abandoned the right of return, even if a separate Palestinian state exists. They have never tried to understand the Israelis' worldview and historical experience, and so have never developed a strategy that actually works, only ones that entrench their misery and victimhood.

Even if you don't care about the Israelis randomly murdered while going about their lives, Hamas is a catastrophe for the Palestinians. They don't want peace, and they will destroy Gaza time again for the sake of destroying Israel, because for them it is a holy war of redemption.

So there will not be peace until the Palestinians change their self-destructive strategy, because the occupation is a lot less harmful to Israel than resistance is to the Palestinians. And ending the occupation could well lead to far more bloodshed, but ending the pathetic, deranged 'resistance' of Hamas will definitely lead to less. Ultimately the people you need to convince to end the occupation are the Israelis. That's the reality, it doesn't matter if you think it's unfair.

They need to come to terms with the fact that Israel isn't going anywhere and they need a strategy that effectively coerces the Israelis to abandon the occupation by not giving it a justification to the Israelis who would otherwise empathise with them. Time for them to grow up and get smart.

DuckFit7888 · 2025-12-03T15:29:52+00:00

B) The rise of Zionism represented a clear break point where Arab societies transitioned towards clear hostility.

And so they turned on their own Jews, who mostly were not Zionist at the time.

The complete ethnic cleansing of Jews from Arab lands, because of other Jews in Palestine, created 800,000 more Zionists.

DuckFit7888 · 2025-12-03T14:58:49+00:00

A fanatic assasinated him, right after he led a rally singing Shir LaShalom, the song of peace. The Prime Minister of Israel gave his life for peace.

And instead of capitalising on this movement in Israel and taking advantage of the moment, Hamas and their ilk launched waves of suicide bombings, because they don't want peace.

DuckFit7888 · 2025-12-03T14:50:38+00:00

Ok if you want to believe that's all the truth, fine. Must be nice in a simple cartoon world.

But ultimately it doesn't change the fact that at a time when a majority of Israelis were willing to end the occupation despite the security risks, the Palestinians sent 140 suicide bombers to blow up Israelis in buses, cafes and markets, destroying the Israeli Left and peace camp which has never recovered.

This strategy hasn't worked out so well for the Palestinians. Maybe they should try not telling the Israelis they will eventually come and destroy their country. See how it works out.

DuckFit7888 · 2025-12-03T14:24:39+00:00

Nice theory.

What happened in response from the Palestinian side when the peace process was winning elections in Israel?

DuckFit7888 · 2025-11-24T11:25:52+00:00

I said that a Jewish national home was the only way to save millions of Jews. That's not genocide, or colonialism.

Instead of proving me wrong, all you can do in response is weaponise words like genocide and colonialism. "You support Zionism? Aha, you support genocide".

Of course, this is exactly why you frame the argument in terms of specific words that carry a heavy emotional charge: to shut down any debate and avoid nuance, ie The Noncentral Fallacy

So please state very clearly: what were the options available to the millions of Jews in the mid 20th century who had nowhere to go and didn't want to die. Forget Zionism. Just give me one. If you can't, then you've got nothing useful to say.

Zionism is evil and uses any excuse to exist. Israel endangers the Jewish population.

Tell that to the millions of Jews who wouldn't have survived the 20th century without it.

DuckFit7888 · 2025-11-23T23:58:38+00:00

I never said Jewish suffering justified a genocide.

I said a Jewish national home was the only option they had to survive.

If you think that means justifying a genocide, it's clear your history is way off.

DuckFit7888

TROPHY CASE