This doesn't need to be a link to some random dude's video because there's a perfectly fine Wikipedia article about Bertrand Russell and his views.<p>He held a variety of views and I hope this particular dude doesn't intend to paint Russell as source of truth.<p>> In 1929, he wrote that people deemed "mentally defective" and "feebleminded" should be sexually sterilised because they "are apt to have enormous numbers of illegitimate children, all, as a rule, wholly useless to the community.<p>No comment. Now we just need The Authority or a committee to decide who is feebleminded (maybe based on religious belief, why the hell not) and we're good to go. For the good of humanity! 5 years later: no one from the authority or committee member relatives was judged feebleminded, so coincidental.<p>> On 20 November 1948, in a public speech at Westminster School, addressing a gathering arranged by the New Commonwealth, Russell shocked some observers by suggesting that a preemptive nuclear strike on the Soviet Union was justified. Russell argued that war between the United States and the Soviet Union seemed inevitable, so it would be a humanitarian gesture to get it over with quickly and have the United States in the dominant position.<p>As Russian I'm surprisingly on the fence about this. In hindsight maybe cold war was actually better but considering how it's developing lately...<p>> In the Middle East, Russell suggested that the West avoid opposing Arab nationalism, and proposed the creation of a United Nations peacekeeping force to guard Israel's frontiers to ensure that Israel was prevented from committing aggression and protected from it.<p>It's interesting how he wants to oppose one people's nationalism and but not another people's nationalism.<p>> He also suggested Western recognition of the People's Republic of China, and that it be admitted to the UN with a permanent seat on the UN Security Council.<p>Also tongue in cheek:<p>> Every new conquest becomes the new basis of the proposed negotiation from strength, which ignores the injustice of the previous aggression<p>That guy should read about Muslim conquests circa 600.
Oof, most people in tech's take on Israel that I ever met usually are along the lines of "I'm not touching that".<p>I'm not gonna pretend I'm on some moral high ground or whatever. As a Jew I'm just happy I wasn't actually born in Israel and didn't inherit all the problems that come with it.<p>Before Oct 7 I was seeing more and more of the arab world normalize relations with Israel. Now it's all gone down the drain again.<p>I also don't think Israel is demographically sustainable, all the ultra religious people have like 8-12 kids, the seculars maybe 3. Sooner or later that's just gonna explode in people's face.<p>My position on the whole conflict is along the lines of "everybody sucks". The descendants of the arabs that chose to cooperate with Israel became Israeli citizens, the descendants of the arabs that chose to not, are in a world of sh*t.<p>It's kind of hard to be reasonable when you have every reason to be resentful. Even when there are reasonable people, if they try to change something they'd mostly be pissing in the wind because the established leadership is funded by Iran and has no interest in improving the situation for anyone but themselves.<p>Israel also is very good at making their neighbors hate them by pulling all sort of dick moves and giving far right wingers a green light to do whatever the hell they want.<p>It's all bs and I want none of it. I will on purpose not marry a Jewish woman just to make sure my kids aren't Jewish and they're less likely to be tempted to swallow the nationalistic bs that makes gullible young people who want to be special and different sign into getting themselves blown up or shot for a cause that's just not worth it.<p>Wow I got more emotional than I thought I would.
I'm not sure Russells take on Israel bombing Egypt proved that good -<p>>The bombing raids deep into Egyptian territory will not persuade the civilian population to surrender, but will stiffen their resolve to resist. This is the lesson of all aerial bombardment...<p>In practice Israel's attacks on Egypt led on to their one Arab peace treaty nine years later. (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egypt%E2%80%93Israel_peace_treaty" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egypt%E2%80%93Israel_peace_tre...</a>)
Bertrand Russell would have been better served if he had studied his own country's role in creating the Israel/Palestine problem. The British Empire laid the seeds of almost all the inter-country/inter-ethnicity/inter-religious/etc. conflicts plaguing the world today but they have conveniently washed their hands off of all of it.<p>On the Palestine problem; <i>Britain in Palestine 1917-1948</i> - <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hOJqLTc6RkU" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hOJqLTc6RkU</a><p><i>The British Empire Was Much Worse Than You Realize</i> - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/04/04/the-british-empire-was-much-worse-than-you-realize-caroline-elkinss-legacy-of-violence" rel="nofollow">https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/04/04/the-british-em...</a> and <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42558142">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42558142</a><p>There is a reason that the term <i>Perfidious Albion</i> exists - <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfidious_Albion" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfidious_Albion</a><p>Finally; Bill Clinton did negotiate a two state solution to the Palestine/Israel problem but Yasser Arafat/PLO rejected it - <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bTC5bq-lfoI" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bTC5bq-lfoI</a>
Israel has exceptionally great PR, especially with people in power.<p>Palestinians have horrible PR (carrying dead bodies on the crowd's hands in tiny streets, is not something westeners relate to).<p>In Europe a large part of a generation believes that the holocaust is the reason the state of Israel needs to be. Why is Israel not founded on a repurposed piece of Germany then?