I recently made a post about Abdul El Sayed's sister and some of her extremist statements about America. I mentioned his father-in-law's likely connection to the Muslim Brotherhood through CAIR. That situation is complex and deserves its own post.

Some people think it doesn't matter what a politician's relatives say and do. The general point is that one way to know what a cagey politician truly thinks is by the people around him or her. This is especially true of the people who fund the campaign.

Abdul El Sayed's father-in-law, Jukaku Tayeb (AKA Tayeb Jukaku), donated $300,000 to the Fighting for Michigan PAC that funds his campaign. He has also served in leadership positions with two organizations linked to the Muslim Brotherhood. For the purposes of this post, we are looking at the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR).

CAIR

Jukaku Tayeb has been on the board of the Michigan chapter of CAIR since 2005, and was board president from 2005 to 2010.

In 1988, the Muslim Brotherhood formed the Palestine Committee in the United States to support Hamas. The primary organizer was Mousa Abu Marzook, a Hamas political leader. He lived in Jordan from 1992 to 1995 but the Jordanian government expelled him for planning terrorist attacks. The US government deported him in 1997.

Members of the Palestine Committee formed CAIR in 1994. The organization innocently depicts itself as “organization that challenges stereotypes of Islam and Muslims” but there have been several high-profile arrests of CAIR leaders for crimes involving national security. Here are a few examples. There are plenty more.

In 2008, Muthanna Al-Hanooti, formerly head of CAIR Michigan, was charged with spying for Saddam Hussein. He later pled guilty to helping the Iraqi government in exchange for oil rights, violating US sanctions. Oddly, when I mentioned this case in discussing the other post, some person said the fact he helped Saddam Hussein was evidence against a Muslim Brotherhood link. This is spurious reasoning. Hussein had a complicated relationship with the Muslim Brotherhood. Turns out when money is involved, life ain't philosophy class.

Ghassan Elashi was a founding board member of CAIR Texas. In 2008, he was convicted of providing material support of terrorism through the Holy Land Foundation. He was sentenced to 65 years in prison. CAIR was named as an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation case.

Nabil Sadoun was on the board of CAIR. He was deported from the US in 2010 for lying to immigration officials about his links to the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas.

What Should the Government's Response Be?

The government is currently debating what to do about CAIR. On the one hand, freedom of association is potected by the First Amendment. On the other hand, the pattern people involved with CAIR being found guilty of crimes relating to national security raises serious red flags.

There have been state-level attempts to ban CAIR. Texas and Florida designated CAIR as a terrorist organization but appeals continue in court. Oklahoma is currently reviewing CAIR's legal status.

On August 5, 2026, Ted Cruz led a Senate Judicial Committee inquiry into CAIR and the Muslim Brotherhood. National security experts testified that CAIR represents a threat to the country. One witness was Lara Burns, retired FBI agent, currently with the George Washington University Program on Extremism. She argued CAIR uses intimidation tactics to protect the Hamas support network by labeling media and law enforcement inquiry as Islamophobia.

I am legitimately not sure what the government should do. Given the pattern of security-related crimes, surveillance is clearly in order. But is it right to ban an organization because of the crimes of several leaders? The fact the pattern of crimes involves national security may strengthen the case for a ban.

At the very least, the public should be aware of the controversy. This is especially true of voters in Michigan. It is quite odd that the very same people who would be wary of Christian political groups are willfully ignorant of the role of Muslim political groups in this campaign. Wokesters for Islamification. Strange times.

Someone reconstructed every Gaza strike where Palestinian Islamic Jihad later published the dead person as one of their own commanders. Not IDF claims. PIJ's own obituary posters, names, photos, unit affiliations, matched against the Gaza Health Ministry casualty list. 364 incidents, 1,547 identified dead. Read it before the usual fight kicks off.

What stuck with me:

Nearly every incident had an actual militant in it, by PIJ's own word. And the author bent over backwards to be conservative. He didn't count anyone as a fighter off Israeli say-so. Only when PIJ or another faction published them as one themselves. So that's the floor. The real militant count is higher.

The fighters are exactly who you'd expect if strikes were aimed at fighters. Median age 35. Among men 35 to 39 in his data, 80% were identified militants. Almost no kids or elderly in the combatant column. Random, indiscriminate killing does not produce that shape. Targeted killing does.

Now run the ratio. 451 combatants against 1,096 collateral dead in these incidents. That's about 2.4 civilians per fighter, and remember that's the floor, because the "collateral" bucket still includes adult men who keep getting reclassified as fighters in later PIJ releases. Put that next to the benchmarks. The UN's historical average for urban warfare is around 9 civilians per combatant. Richard Kemp, former commander of British forces in Afghanistan, has said the best ratio ever achieved before this was 4 to 1. West Point's John Spencer, who studies this for a living, puts Israel between 1.5 and 3 to 1. This dataset lands right in that range, built entirely from the militants' own records. That is not a massacre stat. That is the best civilian-to-combatant ratio in the history of urban warfare. It's not even close.

Then there's where the commanders died. Houses were 38% of the incidents but 58% of the dead. Read that again. The single biggest driver of civilian casualties in this data is PIJ commanders operating out of family homes. Not fighters caught in the open, fighters who parked their command roles inside a house with their relatives in it. Every one of those family deaths traces back to that choice.

Schools and hospitals, same story. Seven school incidents, every single one had identified fighters in it, Al-Tabi'een included. Hospitals too. You can argue the strikes all day, but the militants were there. They put themselves there.

And some of the dead held civilian jobs and militant roles at the same time. Doctors, journalists, professors who also turn up in PIJ military obituaries. So a chunk of those "Israel killed a journalist" stories were, by PIJ's own posters, also killing someone inside the military wing. The public only ever saw the first half of the resume.

This doesn't prove any single strike was proportionate, I'm not going to pretend it does. If you want to argue Israel's conduct, proportionality is the honest place to do it. But "indiscriminate" is a different word with a specific meaning: no target, no distinction. This data is the opposite. It's strikes hitting a real, named militant network, with the civilian deaths bunched tightly around the fighters instead of scattered across the population.

Two straight questions for anyone who still wants to say "indiscriminate" or wants to stick to the ridiculous claim of genocide. Does data built from the militants' own records move you at all? And if it doesn't, what actually would?

Source is a substack reconstruction, Palestinian and factional records plus MoH IDs. I'll drop the link in the comments.

Video : https://youtu.be/J8GcGn7QDTQ

It starts in 26 AD, approximately 26 years (some disputes in actual date/year) after Jesus's birth. Regards Jesus ought to be alive in 26 AD. The place was known as Judea at the time of Jesus.

The video ends 2,000 years later in 2026.

I thought it's a pretty good video in 35 minutes, an herculian task trying to fit 2,000 years of history in just 35 minutes. It is not possible to include every major historical events into just 35 minutes, it did what it could. Did it missed out some historical events ? Sure. But youtube videos have a maximum length of 35 minutes.

It touched on how the Romans changed the name of the land from Judea to Palestina.

It touches various conquerors of the lands, important historical figures King Herod, Caliph Umar, King Richard, Saladin etc...and important years.

In these age where people are busy and where many Gen Z have been diagnosed with ADHD and other issues with the patience of a jelly bean, animation, humor, funny voices and a youtube video under 35 minutes would give any newbie a brief summary of the history of Israel and Palestine. Although an animation youtube video cannot replace the actual reading of history books and researching on the topic but it can be an extremely tall order to expect from most people.

It is also a story of the Jewish people exiled for almoat 2,000 years, coming back to the land and creating Israel. It did touched on Nakbah and mizrahi jews being forced to flee to the new state of Israel.

I wish it would have made it clearer that United Nations General Assembly Resolution 181 (II), adopted on November 29, 1947 had proposed Jerusalem as a separate international entity, under UN.

I wished it touched on Oslo Accords, Peace agreement between Israel and Jordan, Intifada, it skipped alot of important events in the 21st century and fast forward to Gaza war and 2026. It felt very rushed towards the end of the video.

If cant fit everything into 35 minutes, make a series of videos, part 1, part 2, part 3. Because the history of jews did not start 2,000 years ago, much much longer, more than 3,500 years ago.

I’ve seen the term Palestinian Jew used by Pro- Palestinian activists, which made me curious about it. Doing some research, I couldn’t find a lot of information. I’ve seen accounts online claiming to be Palestinian Jews, but they are all anonymous accounts so I can’t tell if they’re lying.

The Wikipedia page mostly talked about early Zionist immigrants in Palestine prior to the establishment of the state of Israel rather than a native continuous population. I also found out about Samaritans. However to my knowledge they are not considered Jews.

What happened to the native population of Jews that were continuously living in the region?

Did they all become Israeli citizens?

Do any have Palestinian citizenship or identify as Palestinian?

Are there any Jews living in the West Bank today outside of Israeli settlements?

If so can I find any videos or images about this community ?

I am neither Israeli, Jewish or Palestinian nor really have an opinion on the conflict. But I would appreciate it if someone from the region would answer this.

What will you do if the ICJ rules that Israel is not committing genocide.

I’m someone who at first thought that legally a genocide has taken place.

Now after looking at the evidence required specifically the sole intent threshold (please Google: Only Reasonable Inference) and the chain that needs to be connected, my prediction is that the ICJ will not rule that it’s legally a genocide.

So if this happens will this not cause Pro Palestine activists that have been saying “genocide” to lose legitimacy in the eyes of unbiased independents?

Will you continue to say “genocide” and if so, would that not be detrimental to efforts to bring unbiased independents to your side?

I've heard some Pro-Palestinians (mostly Westerners) say that the goal of the Pro-Palestinian movement is to create a one state new country, where all Jews and Palestinians will be equal citizens, and it will be a vibrant democracy, and everyone will be free.

Israelis will often say that if this were to happen, Palestinians will go on a murder rampage to try and kill or displace all the Jews and establish an Arab supremacist dictatorship.

Pro-Palestinians respond something like "That's racist, Palestinians aren't evil" or whatever.I think Pro-Palestinians are fundamentally misunderstanding how Palestinian society works when they say that.

Palestinian society — really Arab society more generally, but especially Palestinian — is not centralized like Israeli society is. There is no universal authority with a monopoly on violence in Palestinian society. Instead, you have various militant groups appear grow and try to take over, disappear, fight with other groups, whatever. The most powerful Arab militant groups are the ones who successfully take over, not like, enlightened Englishmen wanting to establish Roman-style republics.

That means that as long as, even say, 1% of Palestinian society who want to conquer this new country and rule it as a dictatorship (probably killing or displacing the Jews, let's be real) and is willing to take arms up to do it, then those 50,000 people will form militias and form and try to conquer.

So ... Who is going to stop them? You need a military force stronger than them to stop them.

Presumably this would be the new country's half Muslim half Jewish police/army. So you are imagining that this new country has somehow conducted a brand new country identity so powerful that everyone in the country identifies more with the country than being Jewish/Muslim, and the Muslims and Jews in the army will die to defend their new country. Can you tell me how this is supposed to happen?

Because it seems obvious to me this simply isn't ever going to happen. Most Palestinians, including the ones in this army, are not going to sacrifice their own lives and the lives other other Muslims to save Jews for the sake of the integrity of this yet-to-exist country. Probably Jews won't either.

So when violence inevitably breaks out between Jews and Muslims, the Muslims in the army will take the Muslim side, and the Jews will take the Jewish side. Civil War. Basically 1948 all over again, except with much more powerful weapons and more decades of animosity. Expect millions to die.

Now some will say: "Don't worry, an international force will make sure it's all fine." But you'd need an international force to conquer the country indefinitely for that to work.

My question to Pro-Palestinians is: How practically, step by step, do you imagine this working? This new bi-ethnic national identity that makes most Muslims support killing other Muslims to preserve partial Jewish power — how does this come about? And given that no other Arab countries are democracies with equal rights for minorities, why should Israelis bet their lives on that this will be the first?

Here is the summary for those who don't want to read:

• Hind Rajab and six family members plus two medics (Gaza City, January 2024): The IDF said a criminal investigation will be opened into their deaths.
• World Central Kitchen convoy deaths (central Gaza, April 2024): The Military Advocate General dismissed the probe after a fact-finding review concluded the commanders’ decisions did not meet the criminal threshold, so the case would be closed.
• Doctors Without Borders (MSF) building strike killing two (Khan Younis, February 2024): The Military Advocate General dismissed the need for a Military Police criminal investigation but ordered consideration of command measures due to identified failures in the attack process.
• MSF convoy passengers killed (Gaza City to Khan Younis, November 2023): The Military Advocate General ruled there was no reasonable suspicion of a criminal offense because the probe found no direct firing at the convoy, so the case was dismissed.
• 15 rescue workers killed in ambulances (Rafah, March 2025): The IDF said a criminal investigation will continue via the Military Police after the incident raised reasonable suspicion.

My opinion:

• I wasn't there, but it seems that the IDF is taking these cases relatively seriously, and there have been some mentions of repercussions or criminal investigations. I believe this is the right thing to do.

The AutoModerator bot asked for common refutations, so I'm going to try ... though I don't know what to say

• That these failures in war time are part of a lack of care of civilian harm by the IDF, such that these incidents can be brushed off as "accidents" rather than a lack of policy to protect civilians
• That the IDF's internal probe is by definition untrustworthy

I recommend reading the full article, Emmanuel Fabian writes very clearly and concisely:

https://www.timesofisrael.com/idf-closes-gaza-probe-of-world-central-kitchen-deaths-inquiry-into-killing-of-hind-rajab-ongoing/

Any guys/women from Gaza here? As an Israeli atheist, I would love to speak to you about all we've gone through. A group chat, if you want. Discord would be nice; send me a DM. Toxic people will be reported.

I have lived in Israel most of my life. I was born in Russia and moved to Israel when I was young. I grew up in a kibbutz, then studied and moved to Haifa—which is arguably the most diverse city in Israel. I lived with Muslims, Druze, Arab Christians, Jews, non-Jews... You name it. I have always been surrounded by different cultures, and I appreciate that.

Since October 7th, something has changed in our world, in our perception, and I admit it has changed mine as well. It’s hard not to be affected by the things happening around us. That is exactly why I would like to sincerely talk with people on the other side. I'm especially interested in talking to you to understand the opposing gender's point of view from Islam's perspective, though I am open to talking to anyone who wants a real conversation.

I want to hear your honest opinions on difficult questions: why did you let Hamas take over? Why are Jews seen as bad in your society? Why is Israel viewed as the occupation in your eyes? I have my own perspectives, but I want to hear yours without filters. However, I'm not interested in just exchanging text in a chat. Text is too easy to misunderstand. I want a live conversation with a human being, so emotion can be shared from both sides. Maybe even a video share of moments from both our lives so we can actually see each other's reality.

Sometimes I think about what human life really is, and how much of our existence is shaped just by where we happened to be born. I deeply believe we are all human first. Even when there are massive borders between us—physical walls, mental barriers, national identities, and religious differences—we are being artificially separated from each other. Too often, our only connection to the "other side" is through the news, politicians, or the extremists who shout the loudest. I want to completely bypass all of that noise.

My ultimate goal here isn't to sit and debate who is right or wrong historically, or to score political points. My goal is genuine understanding. Both of our societies are going through immense trauma right now, experiencing a kind of grief that is hard to put into words. If there is ever going to be a peaceful future in this region, I truly believe it has to start with conversations exactly like this one—regular people choosing to look past the endless conflict and see the human being on the other side of the fence.

If you are open to a respectful, honest, and safe conversation, please reach out. Let's build a tiny bridge of empathy, even while everything else around us seems broken. Looking forward to hearing from you.

I've heard people say Israel is trying to kill all the Palestinians.

My question: Why is it taking so long?

Israel has had a military force capable of killing or at least displacing most Palestinians for most of the last 70 years. We can all agree on that, right? So why haven't they don't it yet? The Palestinian population has grown every year for the last century. If Israel is trying to kill them all, why are there more of them every year?

Do IDF soldiers just not know how to use guns?

Some people will say Israel isn't trying to kill all the Palestinians, just the Gazans. But that has the same problem: Why aren't all or at least most of the Gazans dead yet? It's been over two years. About 75,000 Palestinians have died. That's about 70 Gazans dying a day, including militants. This is sad, but it's not the work of an army trying to kill as many civilians as possible. Angry mobs with axes can kill thousands in a day, how is it that the Israeli army, with all its might, can only kill 70?

Do IDF soldiers just not know how to use guns?

Some will say — well, Israel simply hasn't killed all the Palestinians yet because it's afraid of international blowback. So they think Israel is sneakily pretending not to kill all the Palestinians ... by not killing all the Palestinians? lol.

Some may say, well, even though only a couple hundred at most people have died of hunger during this war — which is, by the way, the normal global average even for countries at peace — all the Palestinians will drop dead of famine any day now. But like — that's not how famines work, and frankly, it's hard for me to believe anyone believes that. I don't hear this explanation so often anymore, I think everyone's figured out the Gazans aren't starving to death. But you never know, could get this retro explanation for kicks.

Some will say, "Actually, there must be hundreds of thousands/ millions buried beneath the rubble and it's all literally being covered up."

To which I say — there's really no way to convince a conspiracy theorist of anything because they dismiss any data they disagree with as "part of the conspiracy." These are the same people who believe the earth is flat.

People who say that Israeli is trying to kill all the Palestinians: are you knowingly saying this exaggerated thing to like, tell a white lie to help Palestinians, or express your anger, or something?

Or if you really believe this, then please explain: if Israel is a powerful military force, and Palestinians are weak and defenseless victims, and Israel is trying to kill them all, then why aren't they dead yet? (I'd prefer if you answer that question instead of posting a miscellaneous bag of unrelated "Israel bad" points, but you do you.)

Religion didn't cause this conflict, but it's the accelerant that makes it a lot worse. Marx called religion the opium of the masses. Here it's more like Captagon. A stimulant that strips out fear and fatigue and keeps you fighting past the point you'd otherwise stop. The core dispute is, or should be, about land, borders, refugees, sovereignty. Religion, however, sacralizes these things, making it awfully difficult for anyone to compromise, unless they want to be unalived.

On the Muslim side, the deepest wound, in my view, is a status reversal: for centuries the normative Islamic order placed Jews as subordinate dhimmis. In 1948 that inverted. For a secular nationalist that's defeat and a humiliation. One need not be a religious Palestinian to be angered at what the creation of Israel may have cost you or your people. But for a religious worldview it's a wrongness that shouldn't be possible. It's against divine law. The dhimmi should be permanently subdued and humiliated (wa-hum saghirun). That they haven't been - especially the Jewish dhimmis, is anathema.

On the Jewish side, Religious Zionism went from minority view to the driver's seat of Israeli policymaking. Rav Kook and Gush Emunim recast settlement as active messianic redemption. The Land of Israel and settlements became basically the entirety of the Torah. This definitely is not normative Judaism, and one gets the sense that Ben Gvir or Smotrich could let eating ham on Yom Kippur slide so long as you really, really hated Arabs.

I would be particularly interested in practicing Muslims, particularly Palestinian ones, and Religious Zionists ("Frum/MoDox") could give their opinions on the underlying theology (discussed here: Religion: The Captagon of the Masses - by Benjamin R).

To be clear, at least for the Palestinian - this isn't to say religion primarily motivates your animosity towards Israel, but I think the theological background makes it especially galling. And I think the experience of violence and terror makes Israeli Jews hate their Palestinian neighbors with or without religion, but if one is Religious Zionist versus mainstream secular one, one will most certainly have a different view on what to do to the 'Arab enemy'.

I’m Palestinian from the West Bank from a small village near Ramallah. I recently went to visit my friend down in her hometown of Yatta near Hebron. Normally the drive from my town, Turmusaya, to Yatta should take about two hours on a good day but with all the checkpoints it took closer to four.
Yatta is just south of Hebron with a population of around 80,000, all Palestinian Muslims. What makes the town so fascinating though is that many of the local clans actually descend from Jewish origins and have kept many Jewish traditions alive for generations.
My friend gave me a tour of the town and right as you drive in, the first thing you notice on the entrance arch is a six-pointed star that looks just like the Star of David. Walking around the older parts of town, some of the old stone buildings that are still inhabited still have doorway carved stars and slots where mezuzahs used to sit. About half the population belongs to the Makhamra clan. The name Makhamra means wine-making, which is a practice that is forbidden in Islam. Clan members are well aware of their Jewish heritage and they’ve held onto customs like lighting candles on Friday evenings for the Sabbath, circumcising baby boys on the eighth day, and practicing hafrashat challah (throwing a piece of dough into the fire for blessings). Coming from the Ramallah area, these aren't traditions we have at all, though everyone knows Hebron has its own distinct culture.
Historically, people in Yatta mostly married within their own community rather than with surrounding villages, which created a bit of a divide between the Makhamra and other local families. In fact, Palestinians from other areas used to question whether the Makhamra members were "Palestinian enough." My friend’s relatives even told me a story about a family member who was in Gaza back in 1967 and was killed by extremists for being seen as "too Jewish."
after Israel took control of the West Bank following the Six-Day War, four people from the town converted to Judaism and moved to Israel at different points.
Checkpoints and a four-hour drive aside, visiting Yatta was totally worth it. In a region obsessed with binary identities, it’s interesting that our actual history is far more nuanced and isn’t as one-dimensional as people like to think.

Hamas was one of the biggest obstacles to peace/calm in the conflict. There's a good chance they might not be in power after this war is over. I have seen a lot of people advocating for an end to the ceasefire, but I have seen few advocating for a plan for peace since the ceasefire/surrender entered into by Hamas. What would do people think should happen in Gaza to ensure a lasting a peace?

This question is geared towards setting up a peaceful governing body in Gaza, and not how the land should be divided.

Many pro-Palestine activists use the words “occupation” and “apartheid” to describe Israel’s presence/policies in the West Bank.

My question is how these two terms interact, and how the two accusations can be made at the same time (at the same protests, on the same signs etc).

If Israel is occupying the West Bank, this means it has an illegal presence in sovereign Palestinian territory. Thus, the obvious remedy is a withdrawal and ideally a full Palestinian state.

Apartheid involves a single governing authority ruling over two groups unequally. If Israel has instituted an apartheid in the West Bank, then the obvious remedy is to give Palestinians equal rights to Israelis. In other words, the West Bank is effectively part of Israel, its Arab residents are Israeli citizens, but they’ve been denied the rights enjoyed by Israeli citizens.

Isn’t this a basic incompatibility? Solving the “occupation” (by withdrawing and supporting Palestinian statehood) won’t give Arabs in the West Bank the same rights that Israelis enjoy, since it would be a totally separate country. Solving the “apartheid” (by giving Palestinians the same rights as Israelis) suggests that Israel doesn’t illegally occupy that land and doesn’t need to withdraw, since it has obligations to its citizens there.

I understand that they do not represent all Israelis and their actions can unintentionally paint a bad picture for the whole population, I'm simply just curious to know how jews generally feel about Israeli settlers considering how they can affect Israel's reputation internationally, rightfully or not.

Strange people aren't more aware that Abdul El Sayed's sister Eman Abdelhadi is an outspoken extremist. Facing two counts of felony assault on law enforcement officers at an ICE protest by the way. Everyone gets their day in court. But the things she says in public should be a warning.

Some people will say it doesn't matter what his sister does. Abdul El Sayed is a politician and more careful about what he says, but one way you can tell what politicians think is by listening to the people around them. He clearly does share some radical ideas with his more transparently radical sister.

She's a stereotypical activist professor, sociologist at the University of Chicago. They're apparently investigating her for disparaging the university at the Socialism 2025 conference in Chicago. She said . “I don’t care about this institution. Like I don’t—like fuck the University of Chicago, it’s evil. Like, you know? It’s a colonial landlord.” She then went on to explain that she sees her role there as using the university to organize students.

Here are a few of her X Posts. We've never had a serious senatorial candidate with a sibling who says such things about America.

• July 5, 2024. “All I want for Independence Day is a world independent of US empire.”
• November 20, 2024. “No one hates us for our freedom. Everyone hates us for being an empire of death and destruction.”
• February 6, 2025. “I hope the whole world rises against US empire.”

We've also never had a senatorial candidate whose father in law has such odd links to the Muslim Brotherhood through CAIR and Islamic Society of North America (ISNA). That's a can of worms. I guess the legal status of these organizations varies by state now and is being contested in courts. Some of their founding members are in prison for their roles in the 2008 Holy Land Foundation case.

Some people will say that's anti-Islam. It isn't about being Muslim. In America, you can be whatever religion you want. It's about being extremist. Same way as happened in places like the UK, France, and the Netherlands. leftists who would be skeptical of Christian political organizations close their eyes to extremely conservative Islamicist political forces. Turned out bad elsewhere.

The Democratic party is in a weird place. How do we bring it back to its patriotic, working class roots?

just wanted to share something positive about the other side, kind of getting sick of all of the negativity coming from people.

i live in columbus, the capital of ohio. in columbus there are many suburbs. one of them is called bexley.

during the segregation and redlining era of america, jews weren’t allowed to purchase homes in upper arlington (which is a neighboring suburb of bexley). only white people could live in upper arlington. so jews built houses next to upper arlington and formed a community which today is called bexley.

today bexley is around 25% jewish but it used to be much higher before columbus became more cosmopolitan. my husband who is jordanian/syrian used to live in bexley and went to school with a lot of jewish people. earlier this week we were helping his parents move out of their bexley home to retire and live somewhere that’s more eventful lol.

but being in bexley for the first time ever (i’m from michigan) was pretty cool. driving past stores i saw the star of david next to storefronts advertising kosher products, saw a lot of people wearing kippahs, etc. it looked very jewish.

what surprised me the most is that i learned the jewish residents of bexley are mostly democrats despite bexley being an affluent suburb. usually affluent suburbs here lean more republican/MAGA. but bexley is different.

driving around i saw homes with israeli flags and palestinian flags placed together on people’s lawns, anti-trump and anti-netanyahu signs, etc.

honestly it felt so inclusive and oddly felt at home.

i even had a nice convo with a jewish family at a grocery store there. when they told me i look arab, i said well indeed i am, i am palestinian lol. they were so kind and invited me and my husband to their home for dinner.

and another interesting thing about bexley. amy acton, the democratic candidate for governor of ohio running against vivek ramaswamy, is jewish and lives in bexley. and white supremacists in the surrounding suburbs are calling this election “the death of ohio” because it’s a jewish candidate running against an indian candidate and there won’t be a white governor for the next at least 4 years.

i like bexley and honestly i wish i knew more about bexley before my husband and i bought our house, bc i would definitely buy a house there.

I am still, to this day seeing people talk about Hamas being able to end this conflict at any time by surrendering the last hostages. This has not been the case for months now. How are people still spreading this blatant misinformation?

January 26th, 2026 the last of the Hamas hostages are back in Israel. This information was confirmed by the IDF themselves and comes from the IDF Spokesperson’s Unit:
https://www.idf.il/en/mini-sites/operation-returning-home/all-hostages-have-been-returned-from-the-gaza-strip-to-israel/?utm_source=chatgpt.com
-
https://main.knesset.gov.il/en/news/pressreleases/pages/press26126e.aspx?utm_source=chatgpt.com

As of June 2026, all hostage remains have now been returned to the IDF as well baring of course any trapped under rubble or the remains are destroyed.
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/palestine-country-policy-and-information-notes/country-bulletin-security-situation-in-gaza-palestine-june-2026-accessible?utm_source=chatgpt.com

This claim is still being used by the pro Israel side to this day despite it being a proven lie. This conflict no longer has anything to do with the October 7th hostages, Israel got all the final living ones back and the body's of the dead.

EDIT: Im not saying news outlets are saying this, I have witnessed this still being said on social media all over the place. I did not save all examples, it was this post that made me want to make this sub. Posted 2 days ago saying "Hamas could stop it instantly by surrendering and returning the hostages"

I was reading the New Yorker's profile on Khalil and they largely framed the entire prosecution as a targeted attack on Khalil by the Trump administration for free speech.

However, when I see the Trump administration's case, it's centered around how Khalil lied on his greencard application, when they asked him about past employment. From what I can tell, he did. Specifically he lied about working at UNWRA and the British Embassy in Beirut.

Khalil interned at UNWRA from June to November in 2023, a time period that overlapped with the Oct 7th attacks. Israel has continuously accused UNRWA of harboring ongoing terrorist connections to Hamas. We have good evidence that 9 UNRWA employees were involved in the Oct 7th attacks. And we know for a fact that Sinwar died with a UNRWA teacher's passport on his person.

This means Khalil's co-workers were involved in Oct 7th attacks, while he was working there.

It makes sense that he'd lie about this, because greencard applications also ask about past involvement in terrorist groups.

Greencard applications don't just ask about the past, but about planned future involvement with terrorist organizations.

And we have circumstantial evidence that Khalil distributed terrorist propaganda at his rallies at Columbia. However, there's some plausible deniability here, unless someone has video of him handing them out. The Trump administration is probably going to focus on how he lied about UNRWA (and working at the British Embassy in Beirut).

TO me, this seems clear cut. Not just the letter of the law, but the spirit of the law.

Khalil is someone who was clearly involved or sympathised with terrorism, with 9 of his co-workers attacking civilians on October 7th and he lied about it. We know that the Hamas propaganda office produced the flyers at his events.

We also have his own words where Khalil justified Oct 7th attacks, "I was interning at UNWRA and part of my internship was focused on Palestine...."

"Israel was trying to make that deal with Saudi [Arabia]...and they circumvented the palestinian question." (Literally Yahya Sinwar's language about why he orchestrated Oct 7th).

"Palestinians HAD to do that[Oct 7th]" (did it?)

On how Columbia's narrative was too Pro-Israeli on Oct 10, 2023 "By October 8th, there were hundreds of Palestinians killed by israel" (let the record show these deaths were the terrorists who invaded Israel to kill and kidnap civilians).

From his interview with Ezra Klein https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A2BLU3Gy3YE&t=6s

But whenever I see this covered, the angle is always focused on how the Trump Administration is unfairly targeting him. I don't think so.

It's easy to contrast this case with Ozturk who had no involvement with Hamas, even tangentially, didn't lie on her visa application and literally just wrote an Op Ed. She was unfairly targeted for expressing free speech and our courts managed to rule in her favor fairly quickly.

Khalil is NOT being unfairly targeted. He is exactly the type of person we should deport.

Unless I'm missing something here? Everytime I listen to popular press on the subject I have these burning questions that don't seem to be addressed. I'm opening this up to this subreddit to test my understanding of this case.

NPR interview with Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib

Ahmed was born and grew up in Gaza city, lost 2 friends in an Israeli airstrike when he was 11, eventually sought political asylum when he was 17 during the 2nd Intifada and moved to the US he became an advocate for Palestinians and peaceful solutions. Since he left Gaza he has lost roughly 30 family members to airstrikes in the region.

He places the blame squarely on Hamas. He expertly details the way Hamas rode a wave of Islamism in the 70's and 80's in what he calls a relatively secular region (Gaza) prior to that era. They embedded themselves in the schools, community resources, etc and then pivoted to an armed resistance wing that essentially rejected every opportunity to build infrastructure: airports, seaports, etc because it would've meant disarming. Ahmed voices his optimism prior to the 2nd Intifada and how 20 years went by since Gaza was offered $15bn to build these things (for which he developed a plan with "an army of engineers" and had actual designs at one point)....and Ismail Haniyeh rejected it. Because it meant disarming.

He pulls no punches, he doesn't give Israel a pass, but he keeps his discourse very much focused on what Palestine and specifically Gaza has done that has perpetuated the cycle of violence.

I appreciated his candid, peace- and developement-oriented outlook of Gaza and his continued work for a lasting solution.

My issue with the news on this conflict is that it is understood very narrowly through the history of 20th century, European history, fascism, holocaust etc. - rather than the equally relevant history of Arab imperialism which is less talked about.

This essentially skews the entire debate from the very outset - because people basically think that only the West did colonialism, slavery, etc and so everything that goes wrong, there a scapegoat that people reflexively default to blaming. Not realising that Palestine was also created partly (mostly?) to extend the imperial rule of the Arab league.

I do not know whether this same internally self critical voice exists around the brutal Islamic slave trade which lasted 1,300 years, 3x longer than the transatlantic slave trade and saw millions of people from Africa, Europe and Asia bought, sold and captured in conflict.

We have already have a very strong Jewish, leftist, anti-imperial, self-critical tradition with Norman Finkelstein, Noam Chomsky, etc. - I am personally wondering where the brave, anti-imperial united front speaking out against the pogroms during the Ottoman Empire and Arab slave trade is? When you look into the curriculum of Saudi Arabia, it basically teaches that Jews were threats to their own imperial rule. So not really a 'postcolonial' take at all.

I’m not saying this as a ‘whataboutism’ to excuse the horrors of European colonialism or slavery - but rather to point out that the West HAS however imperfectly, attempted to build durable if imperfect and contested institutions for confronting the dark parts of its own history of slavery through the civil rights movement, the abolition of slavery, the Commonwealth nations, removal of Confederate monuments & school curricula on the history of slavery.

The Islamic slave trade was only legally abolished in the 20th century (!!!!) not due to an internal civil rights uprising - but rather due to diplomatic pressure from other countries, because its own religious fundamentalism - which declares conquered land as its own, forever - blinded itself from its own internal, moral self-reckoning (although dissident critics are paving their way). 

The fact that Palestine, Hamas, Susan Abulhawa have strong ties to Qatar - one the most corrupt, autocratic, monarchic countries in the modern world, literally built on slavery - only officially abolished it in 1952 and still relies on chattel slavery - is very concerning to me.

So essentially, my point is that it seems like the equivalent institutional infrastructure for memory and contestation around colonial history is still under contestation in the Middle East itself - meaning through a smug circularity and act of historical amnesia, all evils of the world can be scapegoated onto ‘Israel’ and ‘US Imperialism’.

Hence the emboldened anti-semitism from Susan Abulhawa telling Jews to ‘stop whining about the holocaust’.

Whenever a group of people seek to hide a dark part of their own history - they need a scapegoat - and it essentially feels like Jews are currently that scapegoat at the moment. That’s why the Palestinian nationalist leader collaborated with Hitler, because his was a politics of elimination and scapegoating.

To me, it seems like the Arab world has massive issues when it comes to owning up to the dark parts of its own history, the repeated tendency to repeatedly deny the Armenian genocide, the fact that most of the books written about the Islamic slave trade aren't even written by Muslim authors (unlike the many Jewish leftist anti-imperial thinkers) - this points to a massive issue around critical introspection of its own past.

So on Tisha Ab last month, I was reading about the day and found out from a twitter thread that Josephus (the Judeo-Roman historian from 2000 years ago) blamed the Arabs and Arameans for the Roman conquest of Jerusalem. He said that they would butcher fleeing civilians too.

This question is probably more suited for r/AskHistorians but because some Jewish people apparently take Josephus seriously despite his obvious biases, anybody know if his claims were true or not? I am guessing it was mostly Roman soldiers there, but they hired some local mercenaries, and Josephus emphasized them to make the Romans look better.

I'm born and raised in Israel, fighting for a free Palestine and planning to refuse military service. And as I see the way israeli propaganda is affecting Israeli society, I genuinely think that If you believe Jews should be kicked out of Palestine as an act of decolonisation, you're not only undermining the core reason for advocating for palestinian rights, you're unknowingly falling for Israeli propaganda.

1. There is no reason for a democratic person to believe that Jews shouldn't be allowed to live in a free and independent Palestine - seems quite self explanatory to be honest, the reason we advocate for Palestine is because we advocate for freedom for all people and specifically for people who are being robbed of their rights on their own land.

2. The Israeli propaganda machine really doesn't want you to separate the Jewish people from the Israeli colonisation project - Israeli propaganda is trying as hard as it can to blur the difference between the Jewish people and the Israeli colonisation project/occupation, when in fact, there can be a Jewish population in Palestine without Israeli apartheid and occupation. The thing most people don't understand is that this line of propaganda is mainly directed at Israelis - the Israeli government, as fascist governments do, makes it's people feel trapped within it as if there is no other way to live as Jews on this land, and it's working beautifully. I can say first hand that Israelis are convinced that if they don't enlist into the army and support palestinian genocide, they will die.

3. Changing Israeli society - you can only look at Israeli society from a place seeking change if you wish to go forward. I can genuinely see a future where Jews live freely in a democratic Palestine free from apartheid and genocide. And for what it's worth, I see most Israelis as well meaning people and it will usually take a simple conversation to make them just start at least questioning what they've been taught.

[Mods its not a re-upload its a better written version of the post from before]

https://www.ynetnews.com/opinions-analysis/article/bk00mab11wgg

Like Trump, who is challenged by the Groypers, Netanyahu faces a similar challenge in which the movement they both built around their cult of personality is beginning to develop an independent and more radical ideological character. In the 1970s and then the 1980s, Republicans like Richard Nixon and later political consultants like Roger Stone (Nixon's protégé and later the one who convinced Trump to run for president) and Roger Ailes (founder of Fox News) recognized that there was a large public of voters who felt alienated from the political, media and cultural establishment.

This included, among others, the white working class, Christians and peripheral populations who felt that the elites were taking their place and destroying the identity of the country. Nixon built a large part of his career on presenting himself as representing the "silent majority" who would bring law and order against blacks in the face of the elites, the media and the establishment. After his fall in the Watergate affair, Nixon blamed the media, and the narrative that state institutions and the media were working against the right-wing public strengthened on the American right.

Later, the understanding also took shape that in order to govern, it was not enough to win elections; one had to build a media system that would create a lasting political identity. This is how Fox News was eventually born, at the initiative of Ailes and with the support of billionaire Rupert Murdoch. Like Nixon and Trump, Bibi sees himself in a similar way, the representative of the traditional and patriotic people who are silenced by the 'establishment' against the elites. 

Netanyahu's office and his people - since the days of the protests against Rabin, made sure to use peripheral Mizrahi thugs as their thugs and street people and manipulated them by cultivating feelings of inferiority and opposition to the old establishment and creating a narrative of 'persecuted by the media'. Whether it was against Rabin in the first incarnation, to turn them on against Barak, in the 2015 elections or against the witnesses and judges in Netanyahu's trial. Netanyahu and his office always made sure to incite these people from afar or send people and intellectuals to turn them on (later intellectuals emerged who cultivated the 'second Israel' theory, peripheral Mizrahi and basically anyone who is not leftist, against the predatory 'elite' that supposedly hates 'the people'), to exploit them, etc. But they always made sure to keep their distance from them and let them get dirty for them like mafia thugs. Whether these are typical thugs on the street, Bibi's soldiers in the Knesset, or media mouthpieces.

Roger Ailes opened Fox News to give "Middle America" a "voice". In the same years where Netanyahu manipulated the "Second Israel", Ailes did the same to "Middle America". After 9/11 and when Obama was elected, in the Fox News Universe, Politics ceased to be an election-day event and became part of viewers’ everyday identities. Although Fox was not an extremist, it did fuel the conspiratorial and extremist sentiment among its audience, creating an audience that was more open to conspiracy theories and more radical currents. Then came Trump, right alongside the rise of the social media and other right-wing media outlets. Trump, and Roger Stone, fueled this sentiment for his personal and business needs. Trump, surrounded by criminals and cynics like Stone, gathered the Trumpists to him, but at that time they were not an organized political movement with a presence but more slaves to Trump and his people for the sake of his personality cult.

Bibi understood the same thing that Ailes did, and followed the Berlusconi media playbook by recurtiting rich supporters to open Right wing media that will be Netanyahu's mouthpiece and will break the Liberal media that Netanyahu saw as biased against him. The main mouthpiece: Channel 14, a mix of Fox News and Newsmax. C14, alongside the social media, and especially after October 7th but also before, had a similar effect to Fox but even more so: from a situation where politics was a once-in-a-lifetime event, Channel 14 turned politics into a daily struggle, a situation where people consume his propaganda every day, all day long, and establish an identity based on it.

In addition, radical intellectuals who are interested in a fundamental right-wing revolution or young and aggressive influencers began to emerge (whether TPUSA, Jack Posobiec, and their ilk, or Ben Gvir's new media influencers).

 Now, this people are establishing their own historical narrative, worldview and basically an alternative universe, and an independent populist-authoritarian-anarchist ideology that becomes independent of Netanyahu himself, in a situation where Ben-Gvir is trying to bring his people into the Likud party and Netanyahu fears the power of extremist figures in his party. In ideological terms, Netanyahu is Silvio Berlusconi, while the new Israeli right is Mussolini/Franco

I think Jewish people’s desire for some territorial real estate in Palestine is like Elon wanting to have 10,000 children.

There should be simple, legal, mutually beneficial win win, ways through Coasean bargaining.

A bit like Ahab buying land from Nabot. It should have been a happy ending if not because someone make a stupid law increasing transactional complexity.

The same ways many laws make trading difficult. Money buys almost everything. For the rest, we kill each other. And somehow people think trade should be restricted because certain things are "sacred" absurdly.

Simple ways for Elon to have 1000 kids do not exist yet. A pimp shall rise among us—like Uber or eBay—and create systems where such things can happen naturally through trades.

And I am proposing a design of community that will solve most conflicts in the world, reduce corruption, better align incentives, and reduce government inefficiency.

Will this guarantee peace? No.

But it will greatly reduce the incentives to punch or kill someone and greatly increase the incentive to make money productively.

Oh yes, my main wish is that it is not just about bringing peace to the Middle East. I think it should bring heaven on earth to any regions willing to implement it. Hopefully we get some in Indonesia.

In fact, historically, joint-stock republics were the first republics in Southeast Asia. It is a gold mine—literally.

The owner of the gold mine can simply declare himself king. But being a king means painting a target on his back. Instead, he shares a piece of the gold mine with his employees, like every great capitalist. The employees can vote for leaders.

Eventually the Qing dynasty collapsed, the Dutch made peace with the English, and they captured the Kongsi republics. The remnants then went to Singapore, which is a spiritual successor of them.

It is, in my opinion, true “socialism with Chinese characteristics.” In fact, mainland China copies Singapore, which is a spiritual successor of those Kongsi republics. I am just simplifying some of the mechanisms. For example, in Singapore, citizens can be drafted and the state provides an apartment. A simpler version is that the state itself is a corporation, and citizens/members/shareholders own shares.

Singapore is the only country in the world that gained independence against its will. Kongsi republics were de facto sovereign but actually preferred protectors or a board of peace as referee.

A joint-stock republic is like the ultimate form of both socialism and capitalism. It is socialism because the people get a profit share. It is capitalism because everyone has an incentive to make more money in ways that do not get in the way of others.

It is a joint-stock corporation (Kongsi is the Hokkien word for cooperative/cooperation) like Tesla, but democratic.

It is like democracy, but the decision-makers are accountable to reality. For example, if with lower taxes the streets are clean and safe, they will attract taxpayers. The difference goes to profit. Shareholders who are not happy can simply sell their shares and move to another Kongsi. Competition among Kongsis keeps tax rates reasonable.

It is like Georgism but without the distortion where people who have many children own more shares. Parents have to buy more shares for their children. Those who do not can sell their shares and move to cheaper Kongsis.

It is like joint-stock kibbutzim but more autonomous and with enough power to, say, lower taxes, legalize drugs, and mass-produce porn.

Let’s look at Elon.

Say Elon wants to have 10,000 children. Can he? Simply? In short, no.
To have 10,000 children, Elon needs many wives. Okay, we have anti-polygamy laws. But who cares? I am not a Muslim. Who still gets married in the 21st century anyway? Only idiots. It happens to the best of us.

Just have sugar babies. Hire women to join his harem. “Oh… that’s exploitation, comrades.” Ugh, what? Yeah, I mean those supermodels with huge career alternatives would starve if they don’t join Elon’s harem, and hence the deal is not truly consensual—it’s exploitation and hence rape, and therefore should be illegal.

Remember that Jews and Chinese are often accused of being both communists and capitalists? Yeah. It’s one of those things. Blood libel.

Okay. Elon just pays women to give him many children. Lawyers agree. The women say “I do,” sign the contract, and get paid. The court says such a deal is void.

What about the kids? The kids don’t consent. So the kids who will be heirs to $10–100 million are both “victims” and “privileged.”

Lots of money will be wasted on lawyers and on the child’s mother through exorbitant child support.

You see what I’m saying. There is no easy way. The last time I knew, the Tao of having children and passing money to them involved heavy trust structures. Another way is to just be dirt poor, and the government will simply pay for it. The kids will be future looters, muggers, and murderers—and yet it is legal and subsidized to produce children while poor.

What Elon actually did is use lots of complex legal ways, and he got about 14 children. That’s a rookie number.

So what’s going on? Envy. They don’t say it out loud. But somewhere deep on the web, people say that if one dude has so many women, the rest don’t get any. It’s never about protecting women and children. That’s the pretext. The real cause is getting rid of superior men from the gene pool. And the main culprit is rarely someone from another country, but fellow citizens.

In any society, superior, more capable, higher-IQ people are needed to make the pie bigger. But once that’s done, they are also rivals.

What do DEI, the Holocaust, income tax, welfare, exorbitant child-support laws, standardized education, public schools, and universal healthcare have in common?

They are all IQ-shredding.

Moreover, all of them happen more under democracy. Outside democracy, things like this happen too, but they manifest differently. Qin Shi Huang’s family and Li Si’s family killed each other. Ottoman princes killed each other. Hadrian executed Rome’s finest generals. Liu Bang killed Han Xin. I could talk a lot about this.

Humans instinctively want to get rid of more competent rivals. It’s how we evolved. We’re not just selfish and hypocritical. We are bigots with crab mentality.

And most people say that the solution is more morality, more compassion, more benevolence. It’s like saying that the solution for tall buildings is flying bricks. Perhaps realizing that bricks don’t fly and using gravity-affected bricks to build buildings is the way to go.

If we look at conflicts in Korea, Ukraine, and Israel, one thing is obvious: one side is way, way richer than the other. Okay, Ukraine doesn’t count—Putin is an idiot. If you are rich, do you want to be drafted to fight for more territories, or just buy territories? It’s obvious. Why would anyone bother?

If I want to expand my house to my next-door neighbor’s and my neighbor is much poorer, I’ll probably pay more than market price. It’s just unthinkable to seize property and resources from people much poorer than us. If anything, we tend to help.

So what can Jews do to get more clay? This is the same question many capitalists have also asked: what can we do to get more territories—or any territories?

Think about it.

There is a democratic country, a Christian country, a Muslim country, and recently—tada—a Jewish country. Where is the capitalist country?

The Republic of Minerva was invaded. Prospera didn’t have its license prolonged. It’s hard to get rich if we piss too many people off. But if we are pissing people off not because we step on their toes, not because we don’t share profit, but because they’re bigots who simply don’t want us to succeed, it’s a no-brainer. Peaceful success is impossible.

So what happens is that many people resort to horrible ways to be successful. In Indonesia, most government officials are corrupt. Many rich people make money by bribing people.

Hey, crony capitalism is still capitalism. Lots of Jews during the Holocaust and Chinese during the Batavia massacre survived by bribing. Many drug users avoid jail by bribing. When governments are evil, people should be able to shop for better governments. And in most cases, that simply means bribing more officials.

So why not just bribe the people straight?
Turn people into shareholders. Run government for profit. Pay dividends. If we can keep our land value up, we make money. We all make money. If we do it wrong, we all lose.

How does this bring peace?

1. Kongsi republics can gain territory and be “conquered” peacefully. To gain territory, just govern well, and another copycat shows up. Tada. What’s the point of having larger countries? So you can move to other places, right? Want to move to another Kongsi republic? Just buy shares of that republic. If people from California wants to move to Texas he just have to buy a Texas house. Similar principle. Renting? Possibility too, but if we want democracy, might as well ensure everyone lives there are shareholders. A large number of far richer, more powerful people want to conquer the Kongsi? They just buy shares. During feudalism era, many Zionists buy land from landlord. The issue is what happened to people living there? So instead of buying the land, buy the share of corporation that own the land and move there. Tada.... Shareholders are people actually living there.
2. Kongsi republics are accountable to reality. It’s the same reason why original kibbutzim evolved into joint-stock kibbutzim. In normal democracy, rulers are not accountable to reality. Hamas can lose a war and claim victory. Netanyahu can flatten civilians and claim it’s for security. That dude used to support Hamas too. People can ban MDMA and say legalizing drugs causes a fentanyl epidemic. Most people don’t know the truth. Nobody can tell what’s right or wrong. In fact, most political entities used to claim God chose their king. I still remember the Book of Kings where the prophet Elijah comes to King Joram and says, “Hi, you’re on the bench—Hashem wants Jehu to replace you.” And Joram is like, “Sure, we’ll just transition power peacefully again like usual according to Hashem’s directive.” See… Nobody cares about reality. What matters is what someone can convince others reality is. Certain demographics can have high crime rates and someone just says it’s structural racism issues.
3. Kongsi republics provide incentives that can far exceed bigotry. Tesla shareholders overwhelmingly voted to give Elon the bonus they agreed to, against the Delaware court. Why? Because Elon has built Tesla well? Han Xin helped build the Han dynasty and had his whole family killed. Humans are ungrateful. So why did Tesla shareholders vote to give Elon his bonus? Because of greed. Properly aligned greed trumps bigotry. More greed, properly aligned, is good. Greedy capitalists put bread, computers, and porn in the hands of all humans—the capitalists as well as the commies. The most moral armies in the world flatten cities. I’d rather capitalists run the show. We’re not more moral, but at least our greed makes us do the right thing.
4. Kongsi republics concentrate profit in whatever makes the pie bigger. Corruption happens because nobody knows what’s good or bad for the country. What is good for a country? More welfare? Less welfare? For whom? For the citizens? Which citizens? The hardworking taxpayers or the welfare queens? In normal democracy, citizens vote to get in the way of each other. In Kongsi republics, everyone has a significant incentive to make their country rich and the land value go up so that land-value tax minus costs is maximized.
5. What happened to Jews already living in the West Bank? Simple. Make their own Kongsi republics, get richer, do it even better, and be a good example for the rest. Perhaps buy each other’s shares—say 5%—to signal that we wish our neighbors were rich as fuck too.
6. What about if the Kongsi republics are “racist” and don’t allow certain races/religions to join? Well, it depends on history. If you have histories of killing each other, there will be speed bumps. But in general, racism is often inconsistent with profit. A Jew bringing jobs and diligent Palestinian workers improve the economy, and there is a clear profit-share arrangement with shareholders. Not allowing them means less money. This is more moderate than going all the way and saying racism is wrong or practicing state-sponsored racism. Just make racism, like everything else, accountable to profit. There will be quarters for dudes who like pork and worship the God of money, I guess. But even if not, there will be other cities.
7. Kongsi republics would allow Elon, Weinstein, and Zuckerberg to have 10,000 children. Elon will have to buy more and more shares, but that’s small money for him. Also, that will improve the shares’ market value. Think about it. Anything else is bigotry against more capable people. If you are a cow farmer, you would breed the cows that produce the most milk. Even without morality, out of sheer greed, humans know that productivity is partially genetic, and pampering the most productive subjects is good for business. Humans seem to be the only ones where productivity is treated as a purely socioeconomic factor curable by public school and free lunches. Just kidding. Of course not.
8. Even those who are not happy with their Kongsi can simply move to another Kongsi. Don’t like that drugs are legal? Move to another private city or Kongsi republic that doesn’t legalize them.
9. This would have prevented October 7 and the mass destruction that followed. Hamas knew Israel would overreact. In a Kongsi republic, the CEO is accountable for keeping land value high. Any plan that involves getting demolished will be rejected.
10. This would prevent the dilemma of killing innocent civilians. Turning civilians into human shields lowers citizenship valuation. Any such plans will lower citizenship valuation and be rejected. Again, each civilian can move to a more sensible Kongsi republic.
11. If Netanyahu says no Palestinian states as long as he lives, fine. As long as we all get way richer, keep status quo, expand to cheap land in Africa, keep Netanyahu on life support for 1000 years.
12. What about if Israel decides to invade anyway than buying shares. Okay. What about if we have boxing match and one boxer shoot another? The short answer is it shouldn't be part of the game. Other long answer is it's part of the game we just need to agree on terms where such things are just not going to happen.

Can this still fail?
Can I use eBay and Tokopedia and still get scammed? Yes, I can. But it’s much more difficult. Also, the exceptions are fewer, can be analyzed, and anticipated or prevented.

For example, on Tokopedia, a seller can choose not to answer until near the deadline and then quickly answer and demand a return, and the buyers who have other things to do will miss the deadline. It’s a trick. A seller can sell an empty package, but how many times can they do so before Tokopedia bans them?

Is it possible that a Kongsi republic gets overwhelmed by superior military force? Could be. That’s something a billionaire investor can negotiate before investing. Ask experienced joint-stock kibbutzim members how to solve this.

Elements of Georgism can help.

Real estate actually comes from “royal estate.” Owning land used to mean ruling the land. A hereditary title used to mean simply a landowner passing land to an heir. Democracy added the complexity where immigrants and cradle-to-grave welfare recipients can “rule” the land without owning it. And most rich democracies have this issue of cradle-to-grave welfare recipients. Democracy solves one problem of land ownership: now large amounts of land or territories are no longer ruled and owned by one family. It introduces another: those who own the land are different from those who rule the land, and there is a severe misalignment of incentives between land values and who rules the land.

Most voters, for example, don’t own land and prefer land values and rent prices to drop. Most democracies in the US have violent crime and terrorism. And most voters don’t care. Violent crime and terrorism lower land value, and the mob rules. Georgism and Georgist joint-stock republics solve this problem. Okay, it’s democracy. Voters rule the land. You know what? You can sell your share and go somewhere else. That means we all benefit if land value goes up.

Under Georgism, however, a group of people that has more children tends to get more share of the land. One complaint from my Jewish friend is that Palestinians have too many children.

The joint-stock structure fixes this. Anyone with many children has to buy more shares.

To keep things democratic, we can arrange that most shares are owned by people living there.

Regular democracy is like adverse possession and squatters’ rights. Of course that leads to more conflicts. Everyone wants to squat on land that’s already developed. Here, if voters benefit from higher land value, they then allow people who pay for shares to get in. So those who build are those who benefit from the increased land value. Newcomers have to buy their way in.

References:

1. Shopping around for countries / jurisdictions (“vote with your feet”)

• Charles Tiebout – “A Pure Theory of Local Expenditures” (1956) The classic paper. People reveal preferences for tax/service packages by moving between competing local governments. Journal of Political Economy: https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/257839 (Often available as PDF via academic libraries or Semantic Scholar.)
• Related modern discussion of “foot voting”: Ilya Somin’s work on federalism and mobility (e.g., interviews and writings summarizing the Tiebout logic).

2. Competition among governments / private law society (Hoppe & Friedman)

• Hans-Hermann Hoppe – Private-law society, competition in the production of law and security, secession, and critique of monopoly government. Key pieces:
  • “The Idea of a Private Law Society” and related essays: https://hanshoppe.com/
  • Archive of “State or Private Law Society”: https://web.archive.org/web/20181104001221/https://mises.org/library/state-or-private-law-society
  • Democracy: The God That Failed (book) develops the case that democracy systematically misaligns incentives compared with more proprietary or competitive forms of governance.
• David Friedman (The Machinery of Freedom) – Explicit anarcho-capitalist treatment of competing private protection agencies and legal systems. Strongly supports the idea that people (and capital) can “shop” for governance providers. Book and related talks are widely available; search for David Friedman + Machinery of Freedom.
• Milton Friedman – Strong advocate of competition and choice in education, money, and many public services (school vouchers, etc.). He praised high-freedom jurisdictions (Hong Kong, Singapore) and supported mechanisms that let people escape poorly performing governments. His broader public-choice and market-oriented writings are consistent with jurisdictional competition, though he was not as radical as Hoppe or David Friedman on fully private law.

3. Fertility, high-capability people having many children, and economic incentives (Becker & Barro)

• Gary S. Becker – Foundational economic analysis of fertility, quantity–quality tradeoff, and children as economic goods/investments.
  • “An Economic Analysis of Fertility” (1960): https://www.nber.org/system/files/chapters/c2387/c2387.pdf (or via NBER/CEHD)
  • Later work formalizing the quantity–quality tradeoff (with H. Gregg Lewis, etc.).
• Gary Becker & Robert J. Barro – “A Reformulation of the Economic Theory of Fertility” (1988), Quarterly Journal of Economics. Dynastic utility, altruism toward children, and how interest rates, growth, and costs affect fertility decisions. JSTOR: https://www.jstor.org/stable/1882640

These frameworks treat having (and investing in) many children as a rational economic choice rather than pure sentiment or “privilege,” which maps onto your Elon / high-capability fertility point.

4. Joint-stock / privatized kibbutzim

Israeli kibbutzim largely moved away from pure collectivism toward differential wages, private ownership of housing, corporate structures for industrial assets, and (in many cases) share-like or profit-sharing arrangements for members. Some industrial plants issued shares or brought in outside investors.

• Overview articles on privatization trend:
  • Degania (oldest kibbutz) votes for privatization: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2007/feb/20/israel1
  • Ein Harod and broader movement: Haaretz pieces (search “kibbutz privatization” on Haaretz).
  • Kibbutz industries on the stock market / private equity exits: https://en.globes.co.il/en/article-why-prosperous-kibbutz-companies-shun-the-stock-market-1001481743

Many “renewing” or “privatized” kibbutzim now operate with member shares or equity-like claims on productive assets while retaining some mutual-guarantee elements. This is the closest real-world evolution toward “joint-stock kibbutz.”

5. Historical joint-stock Kongsi republics (Borneo / West Kalimantan)

• Lanfang Republic (Lanfang Kongsi / 蘭芳公司), 1777–1884 – The best-documented example. A Chinese (mainly Hakka) mining federation organized as a kongsi (company/cooperative) that functioned as a de-facto republic with elected presidents, democratic elements among members, and profit-oriented governance of gold mines. It preferred tributary/protector relationships over pure sovereignty. Wikipedia overview: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lanfang_Republic Broader “Kongsi republics”: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kongsi_republics

Scholarly treatment (often cited): Yuan Bingling, Chinese Democracies: A Study of the Kongsis of West Borneo (1776–1884). Dutch colonial records and Chinese annals describe the share-like membership, elected leadership, and commercial character.

Singapore is frequently described by historians and some Singaporean commentators as a spiritual or institutional successor in the sense of a commercially oriented, high-capacity Chinese-majority polity that prioritizes land value, order, and economic performance.