I’ve found one thing pretty helpful in explaining to people around me how to look at the situation. It’s very simplified on purpose. Nuance is dead.
"You and your neighbor inherited your houses from your parents. They hated each other, but you never found out why. Growing up in their house made you dislike your neighbors too, though you have no reason to except any bad things the neighbors do to you because they don’t like your parents. You’re in the crossfire of anger. So when you and the neighbor move in, you both hate each other still.
5 years go by and the neighbor decides to put up a fence, and the city council says that it doesn’t matter where the property lines are, they will set the fence and that’s where it stays.
Then for years your neighbor is making improvements to their property, and what used to be half your yard. They begin moving the fence around to suit their projects.
One day your neighbor kicks down your door, sticks a gun in your face, his brothers grab your wife and kids, shoot your dogs, beat your child to death and when you call the police, they sit back and say “they have every right to defend themselves” and start handing them more guns.
now the neighbor is going down the lane, taking over each house and killing 1/3 of the people who live there, at minimum and the city council just shrugs and says “there’s nothing we can do, we can’t interfere in their internal stuff”
The neighbor keeps yelling to everyone walking by that they are the real victim here. They are being FORCED to do this. Every house has people who want to kill them in it. And to prove it, they grab someone who’s been beaten for days, ask them “do you hate me” and when the person tries to attack them they get executed, the people walking by shake their heads and wonder why that person didn’t just let them have the house, because surely that would have made the neighbors happy.
The current government of Israel was given land by foreign nations who had no claim on the land, and just compare modern borders with 1950 borders. The neighbors didn’t just move out and Israel bought the land. Any look at news from history will show you all their “defensive” actions that resulted in expanded territory. "
If the person sticks around for the whole explanation, roughly 50% of the time they open their phone to look some things up.
I may not be changing anyone’s mind, but if I can get them to at least question the official" bullshit then it’s a partial success.
the thing is… geopolitics are just highschool cliques expanded out. if you had a bad time in highschool (hint, everyone did, even the popular kids) congrats, you understand how the world works. that’s all it ever has ever actually been. our most poorly adjusted people become in charge of countries and enact what’s been done to them to everyone else out of a sense of being wronged even if they were rich and popular in school because their daddy never loved them
I’ve found one thing pretty helpful in explaining to people around me how to look at the situation. It’s very simplified on purpose. Nuance is dead.
"You and your neighbor inherited your houses from your parents. They hated each other, but you never found out why. Growing up in their house made you dislike your neighbors too, though you have no reason to except any bad things the neighbors do to you because they don’t like your parents. You’re in the crossfire of anger. So when you and the neighbor move in, you both hate each other still.
5 years go by and the neighbor decides to put up a fence, and the city council says that it doesn’t matter where the property lines are, they will set the fence and that’s where it stays.
Then for years your neighbor is making improvements to their property, and what used to be half your yard. They begin moving the fence around to suit their projects.
One day your neighbor kicks down your door, sticks a gun in your face, his brothers grab your wife and kids, shoot your dogs, beat your child to death and when you call the police, they sit back and say “they have every right to defend themselves” and start handing them more guns.
now the neighbor is going down the lane, taking over each house and killing 1/3 of the people who live there, at minimum and the city council just shrugs and says “there’s nothing we can do, we can’t interfere in their internal stuff”
The neighbor keeps yelling to everyone walking by that they are the real victim here. They are being FORCED to do this. Every house has people who want to kill them in it. And to prove it, they grab someone who’s been beaten for days, ask them “do you hate me” and when the person tries to attack them they get executed, the people walking by shake their heads and wonder why that person didn’t just let them have the house, because surely that would have made the neighbors happy.
The current government of Israel was given land by foreign nations who had no claim on the land, and just compare modern borders with 1950 borders. The neighbors didn’t just move out and Israel bought the land. Any look at news from history will show you all their “defensive” actions that resulted in expanded territory. "
If the person sticks around for the whole explanation, roughly 50% of the time they open their phone to look some things up.
I may not be changing anyone’s mind, but if I can get them to at least question the official" bullshit then it’s a partial success.
the thing is… geopolitics are just highschool cliques expanded out. if you had a bad time in highschool (hint, everyone did, even the popular kids) congrats, you understand how the world works. that’s all it ever has ever actually been. our most poorly adjusted people become in charge of countries and enact what’s been done to them to everyone else out of a sense of being wronged even if they were rich and popular in school because their daddy never loved them
Tldr: religious conflict