aibrahem

For all the faults of these companies, their founders and CEOs, I genuinely believe the world would have been a bit of a sadder place without companies like Apple and Google. That’s not something I can say about most companies (Microsoft), and honestly, there are companies I think the world would be better off without entirely (Oracle).

This is categorically false. After the Islamic conquest it took Egypt around 800 years to be a muslim majority country; under Islamic rule.

I think you’re ignoring the historical context. Jews were being systematically targeted all over Europe, and at the height of the Islamic empire they held ministerial positions in the royal court. Btw, as a native Arabic speaker, I find it extremely interesting how you’re using ‘dhimma’ to mean servitude, when it literally means those who were given an oath to be protected.

Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and Israeli group B’Tselem have published reports characterizing Israel’s legal framework (especially considering the occupied territories) as apartheid or involving systemic discrimination. I’m not sure what more can be said.

The mainstream academic consensus is that Jews generally fared better under Islamic rule than in medieval Christian Europe. Scholars also agree that jizya was paid in lieu of zakat (which Muslims paid) and military service.

Of course, this raises the question: if Jews fared better under Muslim rule than under Christianity, why would they leave their alleged homeland and go to Europe, only to want to go back a thousand years later?

It’s extremely regulated, especially conducting research into the ancestry of Israelis. Which makes you question the legitimacy of the research coming out of Israel about this topic, Not to mention that respected Israeli researchers who colored outside of the party line were reprimanded or called self-hating Jews.

From the beginning, the founders of the Zionist movement were completely on board with the ethnic cleansing of the indigenous Palestinians from their lands to establish the Israeli state.

In all your comments, you keep referring to the resistance groups fighting the Israeli occupation as terrorists, which I’m guessing makes you either an Israeli or pro-Israel.

The IOF has been notoriously lying about killing and torturing civilians. Not only that, but even soldiers caught red-handed on video raping prisoners have not only gotten away scot-free but also been allowed to rejoin the army. Is there a reason why we should trust anything such a genocidal, morally corrupt organization has to say?

There is nothing inherently special about Americans that makes them more democratic. I agree we shouldn't compare the U.S. with Middle Eastern countries; they were never democratic in the first place. A more appropriate comparison would be with the German Weimar Republic, where a charismatic leader managed to overthrow democracy.

Many people raised in democratic societies don't fully understand the intricacies of the relationship between the military and dictatorships; they see the military as a tool in the dictator's hand to wield at will. This couldn't be further from the truth. A (strong) military in a dictatorship is its own institution, largely isolated from the rest of society and granted its own perks and benefits. The dictator can wield the military only to the extent that it aligns with the institution's goals. Competent ones try to align the military's goals with their own; incompetent ones get overthrown.

Because of this isolation from broader society, the officers and soldiers believe that what is good for the institution is good for the country. They're not suppressing their citizens; they believe they are protecting the republic.

The U.S. Army is already operating as an isolated entity from broader U.S. society. Monetary corruption is quite substantial—consider the medium- to high-ranking officers and their relationships and revolving doors with defense contractors.

I'm not saying the U.S. is going to become -insert non-democratic country here-, but if we ignore the usual Western caricature of Stalinist-style dictatorships and realize that there are multiple forms of eroding democracy, you'll start to understand why it's not such a far-fetched idea.

As someone who spent most of his life in a dictatorship, I don’t think you appreciate how easily a society can slide into a totalitarian state and how apathetic most of the population can become.

It’s also interesting that you served in the U.S. military and didn’t recognize how self-serving and institutionally corrupt it is. I come from a country with an oversized military relative to its government, and the parallels I can draw between its behavior and that of the U.S. Army are uncanny.

As someone from the Middle East, I honestly wonder, when Americans say things like that, have they ever read a book, attended a lecture, or even done online research about the history of American intervention in the Middle East? It’s baffling to me that someone would believe that, given America’s track record. I’m not asking sarcastically, I’m genuinely wondering.