If you’re religious, you pay tax. If you’re not, you can opt out. https://www.welcome-hub-germany.com/blog/church-tax-germany

And every one forgave him, and even voted him into power.

All because South African Apartheid was fundamentally evil.

People forgave him because he actually changed his tactics, asked forgiveness and sued for peace instead of revenge.

“People tend to measure themselves by external accomplishments, but jail allows a person to focus on internal ones, such as honesty, sincerity, simplicity, humility, generosity and an absence of variety,” Mandela once said, according to a quote at the Apartheid Museum in Johannesburg. “You learn to look into yourself.”

What’s going on in the middle east is horrible. But, let’s not change history to fit your narrative.

If we’re already talking about spelling mistakes… It’s Enshittification.

I like what Mike Lynch (famous leader of one of UKs biggest union) said during his Novara media interview… I’ll paraphrase from memory. “Back in the day, your retirement was secured with your job. You’d get a pension from your employer when you get to retirement age. Then Thatcher and Reagan happen… Now days, there’s no security, benefits or high salaries anymore. So people do whatever they need to do to secure their retirement. And if it’s buying another property, so be it.”

Quick edit: before anyone gets angry. Neither myself or him want this to continue. It’s shit and we should fight to bring back dignity to people’s careers. But until that’s sorted, I think it’s ethical to care for your own and your family’s survival.

Just because you disagree with a definition, doesn’t mean it’s wrong.

Every country is culturally diverse, but there’s still statistical common denominator. You have big differences in languages, accents, food, culture in the UK and yet 82% are white British. Same goes for Germany, Japan etc. Every country do their demographic analyses differently, but the point is that they all can have major differences within the same ethic group.

So we should either agree to use the same definition or agree that it has no meaning and not use that word at all.

“Ethnostate - noun. a state that is dominated by members of a single ethnic group.” That exactly makes them an Ethnostate. Mandarin and Uyghur re-education camps is authoritarianism.

The 91% Han Chinese sense…

I didn’t say it’s a great plan. But it’s better than no plan.

I don’t understand all the down votes. You don’t have to agree with it, it doesn’t even mean that I agree with it… But I just wanted to shine some context to why it’s not ironic to many Jews.

I would like to bring a counter point for you to consider.

When I put all my money in a bank, I have a guaranty from a regulatory body /government that in case of bankruptcy I will still get my money back, even if the bank goes bust.

This is similar for Jews around the world - Israel is an insurance policy. If your local country starts leaning towards fascism and looking for a scapegoat (which is usually Jews), then you’d have the option to go to Israel immediately. Because historically they’ve seen and still see how refugees are being treated and not welcome globally.

The Nice Guys

I literally wrote a list of countries in my comment…

Let’s see…

…countries with other cultural influences.

No, no you didn’t.

You literally compared Anglo-Saxon countries to “countries with other cultural influences” and then say it’s complex… Pick a lane dude.

Which countries are you talking about? China? Mongolia? South Africa? Emirates? Argentina? I would argue that the “Anglo-Saxon” countries probably have less capital inequality, but it’s definitely a global problem - people with money don’t need to adhere to borders.

MrBeast - just seems dodgy

Hezbollah have 15 ministers in parliament and are literally in the caretaker government coalition.

I mean you can call Gaza a lot of things, but they’re free in the domestic politics sense. As in nobody can really tell them what to do with their people because they’re already cut off from the world by Israel.

And Egypt.

Oh and also, while Arab is a collective identity, it’s not an ethnicity. There are things you can call ethnicities within the Arab world (Egyptian, for example), but Arab itself is more of an umbrella term for native Arabic speakers.

This is incorrect. There’s a scientific consensus of nationality, ethnicity and identity. Arabs are an ethnicity. Egyptian are a nationality. I gave you demographical statistics, you can check them yourself - they clearly state Palestinian Arab (Sunni) - nationality ethnicity (identity). I’ve dropped the Palestinian part because of your previous comment.

An ethnostate isn’t just a state compromised of one ethnicity; it’s a state that’s meant for one ethnicity. Like, Germany is an ethnostate, for example. And then Israel takes that to another level by creating laws that favor that ethnicity. While most developed ethnostates have abandoned their ethnocentric roots, Israel actively embraces them. That’s not how a modern state should be, as it compromises equality between citizens from the get-go.

This whole paragraph makes no sense. You use the same criteria but apply it differently as you see fit.

No no that’s not the level we’re talking about. Jewish law actively favors Jews over non-Jews. Does any Palestinian state have something like that? A state that does nothing has that beat.

I didn’t see any facts to prove otherwise. There’s a reason why Palestinian minorities like the Palestinian Druze, Baha’i, etc. live outside of the Palestinian authorities - like Israel or Lebanon.

I was wondering if Ethno state actually means anything. But it seems to be just a buzz word that people use. Either that, or people conflate it with apartheid.

If you said that Israel is an apartheid state, I would agree with you. When there’s no difference in other countries, to say ethno state is hypocritical at best… or straight on antisemitic.

I’ll give you the benefit of a doubt and assume that you just confused your terms and meant apartheid.

The area is full of authoritarian regimes, but ethnocracies? Where are those?

Lebanon, Turkey…

I mean the “free” part is pretty dubious but there are already two Palestinian states and it doesn’t seem they’re interested in going down that route. Also considering being Palestinian an ethnicity is already pretty dubious when the Palestinian identity evolved as a response to Zionism in the 20th century. The factors that led to Israel being in its current state simply don’t exist for Palestinians.

I would argue that we can’t really know because Palestinian states are not really free states - they don’t have an army, don’t have their own monetary system, limited foreign trade, Israel and other international bodies control it’s borders, Jordan controls it’s religious sites, etc.

I also disagree with how you characterise the Palestinian identity, but we can ignore that for the sake of discussion. According to 2018 statistics - West Bank: 72% Arab (Sunni), 28% Jewish. (We can ignore the Jewish number as is mostly in eat Jerusalem) Gaza: 98%-99% Arab (Sunni) Both have less than 1% Other.

But if you want to insist that they have a functional government(s) at the moment, then their demographics are worst than Israel’s. And I can’t see how it’s not an ethno state.

What kind of policies do the Palestinian authorities offer to attract minorities?

In an area full of ethnocracies, authoritarian regimes and dictatorships,I doubt that a free Palestinian state wouldn’t be one as well. After years of persecution from Lebanon, Syria, Israel, Jordan, Egypt… A free Palestinian state would most likely copy the Israeli model and make a refuge for all Palestinians of the world. I’m interested to hear why you think it wouldn’t be an ethno state.

I see this said a lot and it always confuses me. Wouldn’t an independent Palestine also be an ethno state?

Nothing! Because they already use that power, just not in public. They blatantly exercise their powers to extort judges/politicians/media to their benefit.

Let me introduce you to YAML, you’ll love it!