Hey everybody tonight. We're debating Israel versus Palestine Who is in the right and we are starting right now with David's opening statement for the pro-israel side. Thanks so much for being with us David. The floor is all yours Thank you for modern day debates and James moderating Thank you for partnering with me and to Steven and Kate for being here The title of the debate is Israel Palestine who is in the right? It's an interesting question The moment looks at any conflict the events around here then and preceding events one can inevitably find anywhere that happened before that It becomes an infinite reverse of sorts But I do wonder before I get underway. If there's some common points with my will agree on Israel and the citizens of Israel have the right to live in safety and not from fear terror attacks Palestinians have the right to freedom statehood as of determination either points one or two should come at the expense of the other Not all Palestinians are Hamas, but it is Hamas that has been in charge of internal affairs of Gaza from policing a bit works Education construction and everything in between Out of terror attacks on Jews go back as far as 1920 long before any other presence in Gaza or West Bank While we're indeed here because of Israeli response to the events of 2017 when Hamas broke into something Israel Murder rate torture can have to meet like in the otherwise bad place to Israeli keep with semen shardin and each rate and so I mean bases In that attack 695 civilians including 36 children the youngest being 10 months were killed with glee and droid I further 71 primary workers were killed and a number of security military personnel that will kill this 373 these numbers not so you come from from indiscriminate rockets that must violence in the initial attack It is from some down some 3000 terrorists that broke into the house that shot people in their pants that burn houses with people in them 240 plus people including Holocaust survivors as well as a life of hope baby. We're still in the health of stitch It is a must we're fighting. It's a must that shows to assume activities During this was it has been become a common place to cry out that innocent persons are dying suffering I'll speak to myself when I say that I find no joy in the service of comfort and the deaths of injuries However, many of those running for them is a belt and mention of our ignorant of the role of Palestinian Islamic g. I'm also other terrorist organizations in these conflicts and they're out of this regard for lives of their civilian populations We're also told that history didn't begin on one side of the south That's true. So let's take a look at that history Take a year in a year between 2000 and 2008 to 2023 exclude the periods of the chapparations And you'll find hundreds of thousands of rockers being fighting to the trial black person I've seen Islamic jihad at Hamas. I'm sure we'll touch more on these in the open discussion In 2005 this office engaged from Gaza It was no blockade. It was only a after terrorist group Hamas took power there The blockade was imposed and that was an order of 2007 But let's go further back Why did it sort of take control of the West Bank and Gaza and the Golanites? Between 1949 and 1967 Egypt controlled Gaza, Golan controlled the West Bank, and the Golanites took power to Syria In those 18 years Palestinian Kurdish groups supported by Egypt, Jordan and Syria attacked and terrorized Israelis It was Egypt that expelled the UN forces in Sinai, brought up troops to the border And Egypt that closed the streets of Kiran to Israel It was Egypt that finished that was the initial that grew in Syria in 67 and Egypt that drew in Jordan in the Six Day War It's no example of the surrounding Arab nations starting and engaging in a war and losing Thus begun the Israeli control of the West Bank in Gaza Octakinia is a Palestinian terror attacks Visuals in a position to ensure the safety of the civilians Over the years Israel has shown its movement willing to swap land for peace So in two years with Egypt and then Jordan you know that you need actually leaving Gaza and south Lebanon The Palestinian leaders seem to prefer the billions of dollars a year Let's go further back The Arab leaders rejected the UN petition plan that declared war in Israel in 1948 On the pretext of aiding Palestinians in the civil war that was raging at the time between 47 and 49 It was estimated that 750,000 Palestinians were displaced The reasons are varied and include but are not limited to their own leaders calling Palestinians to leave Something really being from potential conflict science With the hope of returning back to claim that this was ethnic cleansing It's false and misleading and to not know the myriad of reasons for the mass displacement I'll be honest, but did not point out Right to the British mandate of Palestine But Palestine is a problem for the Ottoman Empire before them the Mamak Sultanate For them crusaders it goes back to the Roman Empire Greek Empire Babylonians Or at the kingdom of Judea and Samaria The Philistines were assimilated into the Babylonian Empire under the rule of Nebuchadnezzar With a geographical name around the southwest coast separate and distinct from the kingdom of Judea were still used to apply to the area Onto a failed revolt by the Jews against the Roman Empire The Jews were expounded from crowing so the Judea was named to Israel Now some 2000 years later after that expulsion the Jews have come back to their own land Time and time again we have shown them we're willing to split the land But it's not a free trade our price simply put is our safety and security Thank you Thank you so much David. Thank you James for hosting. It's really a pleasure to be here Before I get started, I just want to come out and say that despite being Israeli and serving the IDF I don't really consider myself to be pro-Israel as much as I consider myself to be pro-peace To me being pro-peace means um I genuinely support the well-being of both the Israelis and Palestinians But it also means a very critical of both sides both of their leadership and the activism behind these causes So I feel like I could have really been on either side of today's debate But because I'm on the pro-Israel side I'm going to make the case that the Palestinian movement for liberation has been by and large misguided and counterproductive to the goal of Palestinian liberation Uh, I think in order to better understand why Palestinian activism has been by and large counterproductive I think we need to understand the tension between The two narratives, right? So if you ask Israelis or zionists what zionism is they'll tell you It's the story of an indigenous population who after thousands of years in exile return to their ancestral homeland and achieve statehood against all odds If you ask Palestinians how they feel about that same movement They view zionism as a settler colonial movement who has consistently killed humiliated and displaced them for the past 100 plus years Uh, these narratives are seemingly irreconcilable, but I personally think we could reconcile them and I'd be happy to get into that later on in this discussion Uh, but I think it's important to understand the main energy behind zionism. It's not Jewish supremacy or religious ideology as many would suggest More than anything it's that of self-preservation and really the ability to control one's own destiny. This is what fuel zionism more than anything else And by understanding this this will give us insight into why Palestinian resistance has been counterproductive If we really assess for a moment Palestinian activism for the past 100 years It's been primarily focused not on achieving statehood not on equal rights as many western activists would suggest But on the the destruction of the state of Israel and the creation of a Palestinian state in its place And not a secular democratic state for all people on the land, but a state by Palestinians for Palestinians And when we look at palestinians way of achieving this goal Their primary means of resistance has been violent and their primary target has been civilians Uh, recent polling after october 7th shows us that 74 of palestinian support the attacks of of october 7th 75 support a palestinian state from the river to the sea Only seven percent support a binational state between israelis and palestinians Uh, and this really just shows how out of touch western activists Western activists are they suggest the solution that the overwhelming majority of both palestinians and israelis do not support What has really been the result of this violent resistance? a stronger israel a more radicalized israeli population and really more misery for palestinians and and I'll be the first to say it's tragic to see the misery palestinians have been put through What good has actually come out of 100 years of violent resistance? Um, and you know many make the case that the state of israel is not needed to keep jews safe But i've actually yet to hear a compelling case That jews will remain safe on the land without the state of israel protecting them and If we can't make a convincing case that jews can remain safe on the land then any solution That jews don't consent to Will only lead to more bloodshed we see what happens when we try to force the solution on jewish israelis So the framework i'd like to suggest for peace Is a solution that really can provide justice for palestinians while ensuring security for jews And it's important to remember that justice for palestinians Can be achieved without creating injustice for jews Justice and vengeance are not the same thing and this is important to to remember um So this really starts with accepting the fact that israel does exist and will remain to exist now I understand that this is challenging for palestinians to accept Accepting the existence of a state that has done nothing to cause them israel. I get it Uh, so my suggestion would be instead of dismantling or strong israel. Let's work to transform israel And here's the thing israelis are big on transforming their government prior to october 7th We had record level record levels of protests. We had seven months of protests every single week israelis will rally to change their government But they will not rally to destroy themselves So I suggest we build a coalition of jews palestinians and their allies to transform israel But again, this starts with accepting that israel does exist and will remain to exist Uh, I view this as the clearest path to both security justice and peace for all people I'll leave it with that. Thank you Thank you very much for that opening from both of you gentlemen Want to say folks. Thanks so much for being with us. Welcome to modern day debate We are a neutral platform providing a level playing field for every debater to make their case My name is james and i'm your host if you haven't yet hit that subscribe button as we have many more debates coming up You don't want to miss them. So hit subscribe right now with that We're gonna kick it over to hay and cider import who are the pro palestine side today. Hey, thanks so much The floor is all yours Thank you, james. Um, I'm pay fellows and I want it to be known that I'm not a foreign policy expert I am not a political commentator. I'm simply a human rights activist and that's wire That's the perspective that I argue everything from. Um, just basic human rights protecting human rights preserving human life Um, and that's kind of put me on the side of the pro palestine side because they are the ones currently Facing extermination in the thousands at the moment Um, I think that's the meat and potatoes of debate is whenever we have discussions between us So i'm not going to waste a whole lot of time on an opening statement. Um, I do think that um, whenever we have Come to a point where we're having debates on the ethics of things like mass starvation mass murder ethnic cleansing and genocide. There is something that is Fundamentally broken As a human species whenever we're having to debate whether or not there is an ethical or moral standpoint to stand on Whenever thousands upon thousands of innocent people are actively being killed and nothing is being done to stop it Um, I know that we will get into the more complex discussions Um surrounding this issue But at the end of the day, it really does just come down to there is absolutely no excuse there is no end that justifies the means of mass starvation of men women and children mass murder of innocent men Will women and children um infringing on the rights of Certain people based on where they were born into is never something that is justifiable And why I agree with my opponent in that there are complexities in how we move forward and achieve true peace amongst these two people um, I think that the Morals of the argument really does come down to it needs to start the conversation needs to start with condemning What is happening right now to innocence lies in the Gaza Strip in the west bank I'll wrap up my opening statement and turn it over to my partner steven. Um, thank you So there are so much that you know can and has to be said about this Conflict starting of course in 1948 and not the 7th of october as some people online seem to kind of think that it did It did however enter the everyday conversation Level of like public awareness then um, that's when like a lot of people became aware that like this was like an ongoing issue and stuff like that um, and the number of countries i've expressed their concerning given funds to um, palestine ala the ukraine treatment This conflict however is is just different Um, and that is because in terms of like apartheid and ethnic cleansing and force or forced displacement and stuff like that Now luckily there isn't too many countries that actually know what that's like my country. However, it was not so lucky um, in fact, ireland to my knowledge is the only western country to have a higher population in 1845 than it does now the pre famine population of ireland was eight and a half million people It's now just barely over six Um, and we have had a free and independent country from just over a hundred years um Famine of course ended 170 years ago. Now look tie this all together under british rule. It was not uncommon to have landlords british, um landlords come over to um irish people and literally just ask them just to leave their homes They just don't live there anymore and where do we see that happening now? irish culture has been all but eradicated. We've got back some of our lost traditions, etc But there's there's no denying that most of it is uh, and and is still gone There's no finer way of me proving this than by simply stating that english is my first language um There's so much irish history that is like lost in fact if you do an ancestry you won't get back more than a hundred years Um, now look, I don't need to tell anyone that the british enacted apartheid on um on ireland So to tie it all back and dispel the thoughts that I've turned up to the wrong debate tonight uh The support that ireland is given to palestine is not surprising in any way. Um, it's it's expected almost It's exactly what we were going through when we were bombed and we were killed in the streets when we were kicked out of our homes when we And yes rose up in a militia to fight back against that those um oppressors But before we fought and won our end our independence were we a terrorist group? As some people would have you believe that the palestinians who are fighting against the idf are To take this into consideration Which conflicts i am kind of talking about ireland? A population that that has occupied the region for decades is now being bombed out of their homes their civil their civilian population has taken hostages on their occupier Well, they're doing a lintic pathetic attempt at being seen as the good guys and putting out Messages to the world in a language that neither a country naturally speak It's almost as though they're just really trying to not be seen as the bad guys My personal opinion is That the ones who have caused the deaths of over 10,000 children since that magical date of the 7th of october aren't the ones to be viewed exactly favorably Speaking of the death tolls and stuff like that. I will definitely kind of more so leave that to my pro-life partner And that is the end of my opening Thank you very much for that opening as well We're going to kick it into the open dialogue Want to let you know folks if you haven't had a question the q&a is at the end You can submit a question two ways one is through super chat in which case we read those at the top of the list Then we'll also read standard questions in which case if you want to submit a standard question Just tag me in the live chat at modern day debate And want to give you a reminder folks if you haven't yet check out modern day debate It's available on the podcast check it out if you haven't already It's on all your favorite podcast apps and with that we could go to our guests for that open dialogue Thanks so much before is all yours I don't even really I don't really disagree with much of what k and steven said. So maybe david if you have disagreement take it away Uh, sure. Well, we're all here speaking english. So I would imagine that is why this Conversations happening in english, uh, it's really is Israel to be keeper Um, we're going back and see what you're calling the product Um, I would strongly disagree with that for many reasons All the Arabs the whole of the blue, I think are for Israel. They have all the same rights that I do any non-jew in Israel has the same rights as the jewits, Palestinians Who don't have the same rights as jews, which would be the first the same say as someone in Western germans occupied by the u.s not having the same rights as the u.s citizen It's it's not a point right over here. I think this is an important distinction to be made What happened with english and irish is also Not entirely analogous to what's happened here in israel As I mentioned, and I don't think it should be too close to this controversial to say jewish presence predates His own presence and has in presence here in israel Um, it was mentioned. We've been happy to share on five different occasions. It has been an opportunity for Palestinians to have their own state they could have had it It's not something that necessarily had to fight for I think for leadership It was in front countries with bad intentions who don't care about the president people. That could be someone they don't have a state Um Well, I mean the irish were kicked out of their homes.  From israel to gaza right now. How can you possibly say that's not the same? It's literally the exact same thing is happening Okay, so I will once by saying that In 2077 49 there was a civil war between The jews and the iris israelis and the iris It was in 48 when israel because of the state of the u.n Appellation plan is that by different countries invaded and lost There was a war going on. It wasn't the case of Israelis going out and driving out one mass or really it was a war post-war Territory will swap will change hands That's this happened throughout the history. It's happened throughout every single conflict that you can imagine that there's Once one side loses they generally lose the land as well So that in a future conflict it becomes more to look for them to attack It's less about patience for them to attack the same happened in 67 the egyptian started the war Jordanians joined in they lost which meant they would lose territory as well Israel and what was it? I think that was the late 70s I signed a peace treaty with egypt and gave back the whole of Sinai Israel being more and more willing to swap the land for peace in 2008 It was Edward Olmert who offered the Palestinians and said we'll give you a state. These are conditions. We'll give you a state They rejected it It wasn't the case of Israel assigning when it wants to to grow and conquer and occupy the whole of this area. It's been in case of Palestinians More accurately than us starting a war And now they're complaining because they're losing they have had how many Years and how many billions of dollars in aid to provide and make shots for the citizens I have a bomb shot in my apartment Because of the rocket attacks our government for its faults Has made policies to ensure that if they are rocket attacks I'm safe Hamas is not doing this. Hamas doesn't care about the citizens David, can I just clarify? I just want to make sure that I understand your argument correctly Are you saying that since it happened during war that it's okay during wartime for An occupying force to take more land which then taking land in the first place Is what started the war? I think it's disingenuous to say that Hamas started this war Because what is happening between the current palestinian population? What is left of them? um What is currently had the current conflict happening between the current palestinian populations and the state of israel can be Tracked back to the nakba whenever israel invaded a country. They did not they did not they were not born in They invaded a country. They were not born in took land took homes forcibly expelled people from their home There's people that were in the nakba who had their families homes taken away from them that are still living in gaza today To say that this started with Hamas Hamas started a war and they're mad now that they're losing Hamas didn't even come into existence until well after this war started and you can trace back the current conflict between the current palestinian population in the state of israel to israel's conception which was Israel was created by the british empire in a land that Already had people living on it. That is the beginning of this current conflict So the argument really doesn't make any sense to me to say well during wartime they took more land because that's war That's what started this war in the first place israel continuing to take land shoving two million people into this tiny strip of land And then arguing that they can completely surround it and completely control everything that comes in and out of it And then be surprised whenever those oppressed people rise up and end up coming from a place of desperation And Their civilians end up paying the price for that I don't condone what happened on october 7th But if we're not going to have a realistic discussion on why stuff like that happens Why people devolve into such Seemingly senseless violence under oppression then there's really no point in having a conversation about this anyway If I may chime in David Yeah, you cool that chime in so Maybe let's just talk a little bit about the history. I'll try to present this in as balanced a way as possible, but the turn of the 20th century Late 1800s early 1900s. There was the zinus movement And this was really an attempt for european jews to return to their ancestral homeland They saw an opportunity, right? This is when the world was changing the concept of the nation state was popularized zinus saw an opportunity They wanted to leave europe where they were oppressed to live in a land where they can control their own destiny That land happened to have been populated by other native populations the palestinian people um The the strategy the early zinus took was not to forcefully Displace them not with violence what they did was they they bought land from ottoman landowners And there were palestinian farmers living on those lands and a few thousand of them the numbers unclear It's anywhere from a few thousand. I've seen estimates up to 10,000 We're forced to leave their homes because that land was then owned by jews now. You could say that this is immoral I'm not even going to defend this and say they That the zinus were in the right to Displace people from their homes, even if they bought the land legally.  There was the hevron massacre in 1929 so You know, I mentioned earlier that palestinian resistance has been primarily violent and primarily focused targeted towards civilians so Their response to the zinus movement was let's kill civilians Zinus understood that in order for them to create a homeland They need as much land as possible in a demographic majority. This is was strategic for them So they took these attacks as a justification to take more land um, and then in 1947 partition plan was uh proposed which would split the land in half The jews agreed. I understand why the palestinians didn't like the solution Why should they concede any land to to these foreigners? That's how they saw it The response to to partition was more violence primarily against civilians But it wasn't only palestinian violence. It was five countries five Arab nations also attacked israel took this as an opportunity to expand their territory now We could zoom forward to to today The primary means of activism has Has still been violence towards civilians now I imagine most palestinians if they could go back in time would gladly accept the 1947 partition plan because they understand how ineffective Their strategy has been but it seems like Yet, they're still convinced that will continue to be violent will continue to attack civilians one day down the line Maybe one generation two generations three generations. We will liberate the land now We we talk about palestinians and how they're desperate and they are and their desperation a lot of it is is israel's fault But to say that hamas doesn't have any other alternatives and that october 7th was their only option I just have trouble accepting that so hamas was elected in 2006 they made a decision to take Billions of dollars in funding and use that to build tunnels And weapons instead of building infrastructure and turning gaza into a beautiful A beautiful state Now it's true that the the blockade does affect the economy of gaza That's a blockade that's done by both israel and egyptum For some reason no one likes to talk about that that egypt is also involved in the blockade But that blockade is a result of israel knowing That if weapons can freely travel into gaza those weapons will be used Against israel It's not that hamas wants to attack israel because there's a blockade There's a blockade because hamas wants to attack israel if hamas actually cared about the citizens of gaza Then they should invest that money into infrastructure and turn gaza into a beautiful state And that naturally will end the blockade because as long as there's no threat from hamas There won't be a blockade. So when I see the tragedy in gaza now and it is heartbreaking Uh, and israel certainly is complicit. I think israel could do a lot differently a lot to really Change the situation on the ground to make it seem like this is just israel uh Just causing all the misery on the palestinian people not really looking at hamas as Just as complicit if not more so I think that's not really understanding the full picture here So if we care about the palestinian people and I think that's noble to care about them We should be equally critical of hamas as we are with with the government They have the power to turn gaza into a beautiful nation Yet they are deciding to continue a violent struggle against israel a struggle that they cannot win And the cost of that is misery for palestinians Okay, uh a couple things first. I want to push back on the first talking point that you had that the idea of zionism is Uh a movement to return jews to their ancestral homeland um I feel like that's a little bit disingenuous whenever there have been like we know that the zionist project had looked at other areas on the map to um To create a state of israel to create what would be the jewish state um There were several other options before they landed on The land that is known as palestine um So it wasn't the zionist movement wasn't just about it wasn't about returning jews to their ancestral homeland It was about creating a Safe place for the jewish people that were experiencing oppression in other areas of the world Um, and I don't think that that was wrong but the idea that It was they specifically zeroed it on palestine because that is the entrance to the home of the jews. Um That doesn't the the the literature the The conversations that were happening amongst head zionists at the time don't actually back that up Wait, so what why do you think they they wait a few different options? Why do you think they ended up choosing uh Palestine because it's their ancestral homeland. I I said in my opening statement that the primary energy behind zionism is ensuring security and and being able to control Our own destiny without a doubt. They had a few options Ultimately ultimately they chose their ancestral homeland makes perfect sense, right? It does make sense to say that you know thousands of years ago. This is where our people lived We have people that still live in the area now. This makes sense that we should establish a state here I'm not arguing that that does it make logical sense but whenever Whenever zionists talk about the ties to the land and zionism is ultimately about returning us to our ancestral homeland the origins of zionism truly were just to establish a jewish state and They talked about multiple other options before they finally came upon the area that is palestine And it was kind of just like half instance. Oh, well, we actually used to live here.  They didn't have the means to do that um So I think that there is a moral argument to say that rich wealthy europeans coming into a A more impoverished people and taking up their land simply because they could is objectively an immoral thing Can I I actually I I won't debate against the point that displacing people from their homes is immoral I think that the early zionists made a grave mistake doing so I would even consider the original injustice in the israel palestine conflict I think palestinian should not have been displaced, but I don't think uh A mass graph civilians should be a response to that, but I don't disagree with you Okay, just one more thing because I wanted to ask you uh one more thing about your talking point About how it wasn't the purpose of the original establishers of the state of israel to Mass displace palestinians like that was never the intention. So what are your thoughts on things like plan D? I actually think it was I I if you look at the writings of the early zionists Uh, there was there was a consensus that in order for the state of israel and not all zionists agree with this But many of them Understood that in order for a jews state to be successful There needs to be a demographic majority that could only happen with displacement There was debate over what how this displacement happens. Can we do it voluntarily? um Through incentivizing palestinians to move to what a palestinian state would be or would it be forceful once Once war broke out then force seemed to be the easiest and only way to achieve this a demographic majority So displacement was very much part of the plan for many of their early zionists Okay Yeah, did you have something to say? David you're at a point you want to say I've already made it I would almost maybe add is that there are also many different other douche settlements that were constructed outside of established pre-established cities The zionists coming in wasn't just going into pre-established cities and displacing people it was Also going on Unused land where no one was I think my argument with that would be Like I understand that it Making settlements on land where nobody was living where nobody was farming. That's fine. Um, and I think that It's perfectly reasonable to say that uh, jewish people were being massively oppressed in other parts of the world and they needed a safe place to go and coming in and creating settlements Around the already existing people is one thing but you come in and establish an entirely separate state And then push the people that are were existing on that land off of that land Is they're kind of two different things if I believe that if In the ideal world that You know people like me would like to see in what is this? It was considered Palestine where jewish people and palestinian people can live in peace from the river to the sea um That possibly could have been accomplished if not for the Undertones of settler colonialism that happened whenever israel was established that caused forced displacement that caused a rift between two separate people and if In my opinion if there was no way to do it peacefully to create a jewish state in the area of palestine without Forcible displacement without violence without causing that rift Then the idea that israel has a right to exist did not exist in that moment Yeah, just one more time Did did you not No, I missed the last two sentences Um, my argument is that if there was no way for israel to establish its own independent state in on that land without Displacement without causing rift without causing violence or causing a violent uprising in response to forcible displacement Um, then at that time in that moment before it was established israel did not have the right to exist Yeah, so I personally don't disagree with with that statement. I would It's interesting if the early zionist instead of trying to establish a jewish state would have tried to establish a Binational state really work with the palestinian population and establish a state together Would that have been successful if it would have been I I feel like we would have been in a much better situation A binational state was proposed in the 30s both the jews and palestinians rejected it But this was after you know 40 years of conflict if the You know if we started with that intention it very well may have turned out differently um, but Now we're at the point where it does exist. We can't we can't dial back history. The question is really how do we move forward? um If you all want to we could keep having a historical discussion But I don't think talking about history is going to solve get going to change the future I'd rather talk about the president moving forward. Um Because k I agree the right for the right to create a jewish state on On land where there's other inhabitants. I don't I don't think that they had that right But they successfully did it now a jew state exists and it's hard to see a situation where we could dismantle that state And the jews will remain safe. So how can we given the current current paradigm create a situation on the land where You know jews remain safe and palestinian up justice and I think this is a workable framework that we can That we could try to talk through When it comes to When it comes to like the current situation right so it's okay I I agree with You know, you mentioned you're you're on the side of like human rights and you see the the death toll in gaza and it's hard to Support that I get it. Um, you know if if you can't sympathize with what's happening to the palestinians You might be a psychopath, right? I I think I think that's that's fair to say But we also like it's important to understand that generally speaking humans are going to act in their in their perceived self interest so jews living on land are going to value their lives over the land the lives of palestinians Uh, palestinians are going to value their lives over jewish lives. This this is human nature So given given this understanding of how people act, you know, it's not that it's not that israelis rejoice in the deaths of palestinians Sure, some do but the majority they don't rejoice in the deaths of palestinians for them They just don't see any other way that they could remain to be safe Um with an enemy that uh is determined to destroy them so The brutality of israelis is really justified by most israelis not because they Want to see palestinians suffer but because they believe It is necessary for their survival whether that it's the case. I think is certainly up for debate But I think understanding what drives it is is important to understand Do you think you're looking very perplexed? Do you have something that you would like to say? Yeah, I mean like look, I mean I talking about the historical aspects of it. Yes, that's that's absolutely important and I've been out to that But yeah, I do kind of want to kind of get back to you know, the kind of current situation that's kind of happening here So, I mean, I guess my kind of question to the opposing team Would be I mean like if we all agree that Hamas has built tunnels and that they're underground Why in why on earth are the idf bombing buildings, especially hospitals that they know are populated by civilians Okay, because I Sorry just like one other small point because to me I mean like that's like that's an act of terrorism And I like I would like to kind of know Why you would disagree with that point if you do Okay When it comes to issues of hospital schools masks UN Depots They should be protected They should be minister of all cost But if Hamas is using them to launch rockets for if they're using Those places to attach Israel from Then those place those places loses their protection under international law Um, Israel has given warning those give warning hours days weeks in advance that if The rockets continue to be fired from the day world attack If they give an advanced warning an efforts to evacuate the Hamas leaders has stated on numerous occasions Is that they want they don't mind their civilians dying they view the safety and concerns of civilians as a UN and Israeli problem um The figures that were being given from the gods of health ministry Hopefully it's given by Hamas There's no right about right now. There's no need to know How many of those are Hamas fighters? How many of those are civilians? um Hamas isn't just hiding in the tunnels and the tunnels are being built under residential blocks They're being built under mosques. They're being built under schools So when you see Israel blowing up those residential areas It's also very likely that those are where tunnels are located Tunnels that are being used by Hamas to save gone their fighters I think it is No, no, go on go on No Definitely It's much fun. I mean like Hamas and and the like government of Palestine, they're not necessarily one and the same If you were to say that they are then you're to say that the irish government and the ira are one and the same and that's just objectively false if if the Hamas if if what they are saying is that they don't care about the um civilian casualties and they don't care about like their own people dying then they need to be held accountable on that but that doesn't That doesn't mean the the IDF thing just gets to indiscriminately bomb Civilian buildings that they know that they're civilians in yeah And also When they're saying oh, yeah, yeah, we're like giving you all of this warning and you can just move south and stuff like that Yeah, but they're also making it difficult for them to do that In other words Trying to keep them in the area that they are then planning on bombing later And I mean aside from anything else if we're to just look at a number of other examples like The the the the fear that I and I and I know a lot of other people have about this conflict is that like It it seems that it's never-ending and the way that it's going it's going to be never-ending because what you are doing right now Is that like there are an entire generation of people? Who have been several generations of people who have been brought up under this conflict? Who don't know anything other than these guys have been bombing us for god knows how long you are Like you are creating the future hemmas members who are going to be then fighting against the idf So I mean like this is literally never-ending what like like so Can we at least agree that maybe the idf shouldn't be bombing buildings that they know that civilians are in and even if it so Or is it the case that well, we don't care if we take out 100 200 300 civilians as long as we get four members of hemmas or is that acceptable to you? Yeah Okay, go ahead and then I'd like to to add to that um, okay, so Hamas is in control of Gaza Bay worth the elected party in in Gaza. Hamas is the ruling christian party in Gaza 18 Yeah, that the vast majority of palestinians don't agree with what hamas is doing And also they wanted that they won 44 percent of that general election So it wasn't even at the time. It wasn't even the vast majority of the population that wanted hamas in in in power Steven the the majority of the palestinians both in gods in the west bank do do support hamas They are the most popular palestinian political party today Well, I mean considering that they're the only one Back against the people who are bombing them. I'm not exactly surprised the ira was massively popular when When britain occupied us and again, I'm not surprised I think we couldn't have a conversation about the psychology behind supporting an organization that Is doing nothing but causing more misery, but That's a conversation we can have but I just wanted to set the record straight that there is overwhelming support Um, if I may talk a little bit about israel's strategy in in gaza, so It's often said that israel is trying to really maximize civilian harm, but when we really look at the numbers um, israel has dropped over 20 000 bombs on dropping 20 000 bombs on a densely populated, uh city is is Obviously gonna have some serious civilian, uh told but if If we look at the the amount of people killed it's around 20 25 000 that means israel is averaging one death per bomb If israel was actually trying to maximize civilian harm clearly the numbers would be much harder In order to actually have such a low amount of people killed per each bomb There's actually an attempt not to maximize civilian death. It's to minimize civilian death But it's not that israel's entirely off the hook, right? So Israel is Their strategy is we can bomb Let's let's attack hamas. We could destroy them So that is their strategy and I think there's there's probably better strategies that won't cause this much civilian death toll But that is their strategy. Now hamas infrastructure is embedded within civilian infrastructure.  That's that's horrible But that doesn't mean that 30 percent are actually hamas soldiers and if you look at the numbers 30 percent That means around one third of hamas has already been killed. Um, so militarily, it's actually been effective now I I do think you make a good point by saying, um, are we creating it in the next generation of terrorists? Yeah, I I think that you know israeli's often complain about Palestinian population how well they are well israel engages in many activities that do nothing but further radicalize the palestinians And I think that's something they should be called out on But it's not It's not accurate to say that they're just trying to kill as many civilians as possible because the numbers don't reflect that And if their goal really is if their strategy is a military strategy It's impossible to do that without having a civilian death toll So it's either we accept that civilians are going to die because israel has a right to attack a terrorist organization that That massacre their civilians Or we could say israel does not have a right to do that and they need to engage in other other means to dismantle hamas Uh, and if that's the case, I'd be interested in in hearing What that what that looks like? Because I agree that seeing the destruction of gaza Is heartbreaking, but I also don't really have a clear alternative. Like I don't know what to tell my fellow israelis Guys, let's not attack. Let's do this instead. What is what is that alternative? Diplomacy conversations international pressure Uh, if if you guys really have a clear idea for what israel could do to make sure that their civilians aren't going to be Uh, my last secret. I'd be I'd be interested in hearing I I do know I do think that the the simplest solution is for hamas to just accept That israel exists and start building gaza rather than using their energy and funds into bombing israel Or killing israel's Why is it that the simplest solution is to try and convince hamas that israel is a force that's not going away? Why is it not to to convince israel to agree to a permanent ceasefire? So this can actually be discussed and that this can actually be sorted out and and and Sorry, just as another kind of slight thing the idea that a 70 civilian death rate is a successful military tactic That's I mean that's that's That's ludicrous to me i'm gonna kind of like can I just want to reiterate what steven's saying a little bit because like what I think what the issue is here is It seems it seems like your solution is Kind of put the ball in the court of the palestinians But the harsh reality of the situation is that the palestinians are punching up and israel is very very much punching down They are the occupying force. They have the military. They have the support of the um, the biggest And most destructive military on the planet um to say that we need to rely on the resistance fighters to Kind of just lay down arms and forget about their Their their entire cause mas was created to resist the occupation of israel To say that we should expect Terrorists we've labeled these people terrorists. We can't expect them to act in any other way But as terrorists so to put the ball in the court of hamas hamas needs to do this in order for the solution to move forward Just doesn't really make sense Yeah, well, you know, I was invited to be on the pro israel side So naturally i'm gonna focus a little bit more on hamas, but I think both sides Are are responsible for this situation. It can do a whole lot to change the situation I I don't agree that because one side's more powerful. Therefore the other side doesn't have responsibility. This is kind of like a The uh This like new idea that comes out of western activism that if you're oppressed you have zero agency and zero accountability And there's absolutely nothing you could do to change your situation Uh, but I just I just don't accept that because we see a clear things that hamas can do to improve the situation Of gossens and if you really want to improve your situation, don't wait for others to change it for you Take control take responsibility and and change your life. Um, again, this doesn't mean israel is not responsible But this whole idea that because palestinians are weak. Therefore they could do no wrong and because israel is strong Everything they do is wrong. I just don't think that's a that's a framework to really, uh, you know Reconciling and move forward towards a peaceful resolution But see whenever like whenever we're discussing the idea of palestinians improving their lives inside the gaza strip hamas working to build infrastructure to make gaza A better more livable place. They could do all of that Um, they could create a thriving cities. It's thriving cities throughout the gaza strip Um a thriving society a thriving government. That's not going to change the IDF picking up children on the side of the road and detaining them without trial without representation and barring them from seeing their family It's not going to stop IDF soldiers from just Senselessly shooting and murdering people at checkpoints The reality of the violence that palestinians are responding to is the fact that it is very much a response The violence is always going to be responded to with equal violence And the reality is is that palestinians live under terrorization from israel all day every day Yeah, and so I think it's important for us to acknowledge that maybe this is something we could agree on Both sides are acting violently as a response to the violence of the others So we're stuck in this bloody cycle of violence israel being the more powerful one has the upper hand and You know, we're losing less lives, but it's not like israeli violence. It was created in a vacuum. That's also a response to violence So so again, I'll go back to the point that if we really want to end the violence We need it. We need both sides to take responsibility for their contribution to this Uh horrible situation Stephen again with the perpex face Yeah, I mean Is there I mean, is is there is there like a genuinely like is there a good argument as to why Israel is not agreeing or is not even it appears to be open to A permanent ceasefire so that this can be addressed um So Go ahead There was a ceasefire on 6th of october And so what happened when it comes to part on the ceasefire And after what Hamas did upon the 7th of october There's not going to be a permanent ceasefire until Hamas itself is dismantled until we can get out of Hamas I don't think that myself and under we have always said that we take no joy We don't have any pleasure. We don't want innocent civilians to die but as also as I said in my opening Our safe insecurity does not come at the expense of our security shouldn't come at the expense of Hamas staying in power And then personally and slow freely with Hamas in power, that's a major because Much of what had are said where the idea could do so much better. Israel could do so much better To bring this conflict in West Bank in Gaza to a more peaceful solution. I agree The main things that could be said about this really side But they leave Hamas in power with their desire for a Palestinian Islamic state from north to south from east to the west That's not a viable option anymore after the 7th that's no longer a viable option to leave them in power I have to push back a little bit David against your your opening remark about how there was a ceasefire on october 6th Because the reality of that is is that all that meant is that Israeli civilians were not dying between october 1st and october 7th 8 palestinian civilians were shot and killed by idf or by Israeli settlers During ceasefires That just means that Israelis are not dying palestinians continue to die in between those ceasefires And they continue to be victims of incredible violence at the hands of the idf and at the hands of Israeli civilians Okay You didn't know that there are suicide bombing suicide attacks. There are life attacks. There are random shootings In the west bank and in israel you do know that there are rockets fired From Gaza into israel and the reason why we have so few casualties from the rocket attacks Is because we have shelters both in the public and in our homes. We have shelters It's not because during times of ceasefire from us states put in bunkers and palestinian state put in beds Israelis are dying too But not nearly at the same rate that palestinians are and if you look back through history There is even on october 7th again not condoning what happened But do you people realize a few people even know that hamas literally told the Israeli government that they were going to do october 7th They didn't say when it was going to happen, but they told them in response to the The marches and all of the protests that were happening at the border crossings for the palestinian political prisoners hamas was telling the Israeli government you need to release our political prisoners All the people that you're holding without charge They need to be released immediately including the thousands of children um And those protesters Were those nonviolent protesters were shot at and in response hamas did release a statement saying that there was There was going to be a direct attack on Israeli civilians until what they considered to be palestinian hostages were released Taking prisoners taking hostages Okay, i'm not sure they actually came out and said that they're gonna attack them, but um Yeah, i'm not i'm not sure that that actually happened But are you talking if i can find it? Hey, yeah, are you talking about the march of return where 30 000 palestinians walk to the to the gazon border to try to cross the border No, no, this was a protest that haven't and i believe in september They they were just people gathered at the border crossing. They were not trying to cross They were just protesting at the border crossings for the political for the palestinian political prisoners Okay, i'd be interested in knowing a little bit more about that. I i could expand on uh On steven's question about why not a permanent ceasefire? benjamin atton yahoo October 7th was the largest stain on his his legacy of many stains It's interesting because a lot of people make this claim that israel allowed it to happen Who exactly allowed it to happen? Did benjamin atton yahoo want to destroy his career? The next time there's elections in israel, it looks like Benjamin Netanyahu is gone and we don't know what good will come out of this horrible situation But bb being gone might be one good thing that comes of it He didn't have any incentive to allow that to happen But he does have an incentive to have a decisive victory because if he has any hope to remain in power It's a decisive victory and he has also incentive for this to be a prolonged conflict So maybe israelis forget about what happened and can forgive him and he can remain in power He's very self interested. Um, so on one hand the the Disagreement for a permanent ceasefire is really just the personal interest of benjamin netanyahu on one hand on the other Uh, the israeli population, they're they're so fed up. They just want to see how must be destroyed So it would any leader that would come and You have some kind of a ceasefire that would see how must remain intact would really be political suicide So you have a a challenging situation where and and this is also You know, I suppose the reason why israel Responds to rocket fire with bomb and gaza even though it's unclear that that's an effective strategy It's because if they were to not do that The citizens would view that leader as weak and they would lose the next election So you kind of have this situation where the people's expectation of their government causes the government to act aggressively and Maybe even irrationally and I actually think palestinian leadership undergo something similar The reason why hamas is more popular than the palestinian authority is because they act more aggressively towards israeli civillians and something that the palestinian people support So I don't really quite know how to change this paradigm Aside from really having like a bold courageous leader that's going to rise up and and make this change but Leaders generally are are care more about their own self preservation than anything else and when you look at the the You know sentiment of the people it's it's you respond to force with force or you respond to occupation with force So that really causes the leadership to if you want to be a popular leader Whether it's a palestinian leader an israeli leader you need to be hawkish and it's unfortunate And I don't really have a solution for it, but you should give us some insight as to the incentive structure on the land Everybody feel good Everybody feel good with that open Everybody feel good with that open dialogue Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm good Okay, it's a good opportunity We'll jump into the q&a when I say folks if you haven't have a question as mentioned You can submit it two ways one via just tagging me with that modern day debate In the live chat or you can do it via super chat as those will go to the top of the list Also, check out the description box if you haven't already You can find our guest links in the description box right now including if you're listening via the podcast Our guests are the light blood of the channel. We appreciate them So do check out their links if you'd like to hear more of their views with that We're gonna jump into this next one from the social democrat says for everyone Okay, really quick.  They say trump or biden. Who are you? I don't know Predicting or who would you prefer? So let's do both really quick Who would you just like objectively like doesn't mean that you like them? But who do you think is going to win like I can confidently say that as an as an as an outsider trump was definitely I mean, he was one of the worst us presidents in history, but biden. I mean, he's like a laptop on 4% battery So, I mean, I don't I don't I don't like I don't know anymore, man america is my favorite non actual You know fake reality tv show at the moment, so I didn't No prediction Oh, I mean if you had to hold me to a prediction, I Think that biden is just gonna edge it out, but I do think it's going to be a little bit closer than it was in 2020 Juicy anybody else? Um Yeah, happy to go next. I mean first of all if we want to really Understand a a flawed democracy you have a population of 350 million people and they produce such results every single election. It's it's kind of bothering to see How there's so much so much talent in the united states and you literally have one guy with dementia and the other guy who also might have Neither of them would we feel comfortable babysitting our children or really holding any any position of power and yet they're They're in maybe the most important position in the world In terms of who I would prefer. I mean, I'm certainly not a fan of either but I For the sake of the supreme court, I would like the supreme court to be a little bit more balanced Then it's right now leaning way to the right. So for that reason alone, I would support biden But I actually think trump's gonna win Biden has like an approval rating in the 20s. I don't think any any president has had such a low approval rating at this point in the first term And the 2020 election was much closer than many people realize and With this level of pulling out. I don't see how biden pulls it out I think if the democrats are smart, they they replace him Let him live the rest of his life and honestly what they're doing is elder abuse like somebody and go biden's condition should be Like it's just that Bring some young energy in there and have somebody run against trump who could actually win because I don't think biden's kind of Anybody else? Um, yeah, I'll go. Um, I'm actually hoping to be dead before this election happens. Um but if I I have to say like part of me because I'm not I really am not politically involved. Um, but Part of me wants to believe that the progressives and the people that are just kind of fed up with the democrats at this point After seeing how they've responded to this conflict That they can pull out and really give the dnc a run for their money personally, but um Yeah, I don't know. I think that trump might actually be able to pull out a win this time Oh anyone else david don't hold back I when it comes to trump or biden, I have no idea. Um, I think I hope biden wins, um I don't know what i'm doing That was a terrible four years For everyone, I think it's at the country. I think I think it's at the us back in So much, I hope biden wins Juicy this one coming in from appreciate your question auto says do you want ukraine to win? Just want to understand the correlation between supporting israel slash palestine versus ukraine Slash genocidal russia Any thoughts? Um, I think genocide is always bad Don't do it. Whatever starts doing it is bad It's a hot take right there. Okay RMT says heart of the problem is religion.  Yes, their father abraham was so was from ur for Um, i'm saying this wrong. I'm sure ur Uh, in parentheses iraq. They say a kaldian sarah, what was also a kaldian. This is a bronze age Tribal whenever the it's like parroting the richard or the Hitchens bronze age tribal religious fight. Let them fight it out What are your thoughts? um Yeah, a lot of people try to view this as a religious conflict. I think religion certainly makes it fuels the conflict, but I think if everybody on the land worked tomorrow to just Denounce the religion and become atheists. You'd still have an ethnic and uh, national conflict At the end of the day, you have two distinct populations who were quite different from each other They not only have different religions. They're culturally different. They speak different languages Languages, they have different customs and they've been in conflict with each other for for over a hundred years So religion is not the only fuel to the fire that is the israel palestine conflict It's much deeper than that And also it's not like the second you become atheists you That often often when you become an atheist you have other dogmas like political ideology Some of the more extreme, you know, israelis are not religious, but they're they're very directly impacted so I think that Yeah, religion fuels it, but it's not it's not the the central fuel to to the fire Yeah, and also even if it was a conflict of religion the whole idea of like let them fight it out and kill each other In the name of religion is also like Not a good way to look at it. Pretty bad. I mean like I'm an I'm an equal opportunities offender. I think all religions are equally wrong apart from Mormons. Just just no They're more wrong Yeah, uh, but uh, I yeah, I don't know. I I think to kind of frame it as like a Just a religious issue is not yeah. I don't I don't agree with that for me I think the four of us agree that this that religion exacerbates this conflict way more than it already needs to be You got it. Did anybody have any other thoughts on the uh, this auto is Concerned in chat. What he he wanted is did anybody have any other thoughts on the Is there a correlation between supporting israel versus palestine and who one supports regarding ukraine versus russia Anybody have I didn't mean to cut it off if anybody had extra thoughts. They want to share I do think it's I mean There's there's certainly a correlation I like I can only kind of speak to the certain kind of circles that I run in on like twitter and stuff like that Like or like in you know, wider kind of youtube spaces and stuff like that It does definitely seem to be an awful lot of the same people who were on the side of ukraine who are now on the side of Palestine, I don't think it's all of them like like each and every single person But it is definitely curious as to why there's a correlation there I mean like I think the commission If you were to kind of put it down to you know to objectify it, you know, it would be kind of I mean, this is obviously going to be a little bit of my bias and why i'm on this side but I mean it would be kind of you're looking at it as A an occupying country that is invading and taking land and taking territory away from a different like that Like those two like that that element is is present in both of those those examples So that's maybe kind of why there's an awful lot of people on the same sort of sites and stuff here, but I don't know. I'm just a bit ballin at this point Yeah, I think I sort of agree at scale But I think it all goes to that power imbalance between one massive military superpower being Russia And a smaller country with country theory being Ukraine However, by using other way and I would prefer Ukraine to Get back to all borders and that you know How they would end there You got it. That reminds me. Oh wait before I do Just to add to that I mean, I think the the simplest way to understand the correlation is You know, generally those on the left They will support the less powerful entity. So you're going to see a correlation Many support Ukraine as well as Palestine because they're the weaker ones um Yeah, so that that's a clear correlation, but beyond that. I'm not quite sure You got it any last thoughts on that one No One thing I was going to mention is that folks someone pointed out to me recently and it's true is We have not had I don't think we've had one debate On whether or not you could say we've given Muslims and christians and we've even had like a case for atheism type of debate more than once And case for Islam case of Christianity. We have never had a case for Judaism So if someone wants to come on, I do want to let you know folks in the live chat if you're watching later as well If you email me at moderndaydebate at gmail.com If you want to make the case for Judaism the religion We are happy to have that the only thing I just have to ask is that the same way with like christianity and Islam is I cry to vet in the sense that i'm kind of like Do you or people usually want to hear like a defense of like the orthodox View by that. I don't mean rick orthodox. I mean like The kind of like standard like you believe in a personal god that hears prayers And you believe in like the major doctrines of the faith Not like you know some people out there There's some theologians that are atheists and they call themselves christians and it's like okay We're not gonna have them come on and make a case for christianity Or there may be like well, I'm a christian, but I don't really believe in any of the doctrines of the bible I just Let him a christian and I make up my own kind of theology is like well We're looking for like more Dandered conventional cases With that jumping into the next question. Thanks very much John michael b says k You agree with the sentence free palestine from the river to the sea You know what that sentence means I know what I know what israel defenders want it to mean I know that they want to get all but hurt over a phrase of words whenever people are literally dying Please get over yourself and stop being offended by everything There are israelis that use that phrase and reference to israel. Okay Nobody is saying that in being like let's kill all of the jews Okay, relax and I said it in the context of palestinians and jewish people living alongside each other in the state of palestine So calm down You got it. There's one problem taking back eden says will israel live by the 10 commandments again? I don't know Always got something from Watermelon seven eight six says can each of the panelists react to the preliminary I see jay ruling against Who wouldn't you help me with the uh I see jay. What's that mean? independent court of justice international court of Um, I actually didn't look thoroughly into the ruling but the reason I didn't look is because i'm not particularly interested International law. I can just have some value, but a law that's not enforceable. It doesn't really hold much weight and international law unfortunately, generally not enforced but it seems like the ruling was uh that Uh, they actually didn't call for a ceasefire, which the interesting they called for release of hostages Uh, it seemed like by and large the the ruling was favorable towards israel Um, but again, even if even if they said israel is committing the crime of genocide What would anybody do about it like I really don't think it would have made a difference. So i'm not particularly interested in that case You got it This one coming in from do appreciate it as well auto says hey james Why don't you have debates about uh the russian invasion of ukraine? It is probably the most important topic in the world for a two years Straight or so that's true. We haven't had in a while. We've had several But I do agree with you be good to have it because we haven't had in a while This one coming in from taking back eden says advocate for m Oh, okay. They say uh for murder you you're going to do it Man, I don't know what you mean by that. Does anybody know what that means I advocate for murder you're going to do with that one's the statement I think they mean like you're gonna advocate for murder and I don't know who they're saying it to though Is there I mean, I I can only speak for myself. I didn't advocate for the murder of anybody. So I know it's not addressed to me Yeah, I'll go on the the record saying murder is bad Yeah, I mean, it's yeah But yeah, sure. Yeah fair Uh, but you know, I think if I'm to try to understand that question, you know, this is a very like emotional issue and people um come into it with Some preconceived notion and you can have like we're having by and large respectful conversation Which I I'm appreciative of because it's very hard to come by in today's climate But I think some of the viewers aren't actually listening. They're just furious and they're hearing what they want to hear and you know So so some of the comments are naturally going to be quite irrational and and perhaps even incoherent You got it this one coming in from appreciate your question M k map says please identify one or two things that you can admit That the side you are here to support is doing wrong morally and what should they be doing differently? That's an awesome question. I'm happy to go first I think israel has uh Has accepted the status quo as as normal without understanding that the status quo will always produce more violence israel's done very little to actually Really re-energize the peace process We have done very little to improve the lives of palestinians both both in the west bank in gaza There's very little accountability when soldiers in the west bank abuse their power settlement expansion does nothing but further Cause despair amongst palestinians. We don't teach her We can't we can't even communicate with palestinians because we don't speak the same language We could start teaching arabic in schools. We could we could teach the palestinian narrative and we could really orient our population towards peace and engage in a lot of good faith measures that will Ate in the deradicalization of the palestinians right now. There's such a deep level of fear hate and despair that it's hard to perceive any solution and and you know The the population the palestinian population their sentiment is very much a result of the environment that they are living in Israel has a lot of control over their environment and they don't take much consideration to how they could create Uh an environment which will create a population that is open to peace with israel You got it I think I yeah, i'd like to hear everyone for this question Um, yeah, I can go next. Um, I've been noticing just on my side that um people that are on the pro palestinian side have a hard time finding balance um between Centering the voices of palestinians particularly palestinians that are currently living in gaza and in the west bank You know, thanks to the internet We can have direct communication with these people and I do believe that whatever we're talking about You know things like mass murder mass starvation. What is happening to the palestinian peaceful pacific? Particularly in the gaza strip that we should be centering their voices and we should be listening to what they have to say um, but I think the pro palestinian side has a hard time striking balance between The idea of centering those voices and understanding that these people are living in an active war zone They are burying the their bodies of their family members. They are going hungry. They are Uh experiencing malnutrition They're not going to be Of the mindset to be able to make long-term plans as far as what is the best next step for This towards a solution right now and expecting so much of these people while they are trying to just survive and Being able to find the balance between centering the voices of palestinians while also not putting too much pressure on the people that are Literally living through a war right now Yeah, I mean to kind of add to that. I I would just kind of say that like look, I mean Definitely, you know By and large and in general I am against uh any kind of political violence and stuff like that like but I just kind of find it very very hard to like not understand where You know, the initial organization of Hamas is kind of coming from especially from like the historical standpoint with like what ireland did with the IRA and stuff like that Um, I mean, they're not exactly viewed very favorably now, but they were definitely at the time so, I mean I'd I hate the idea of civilian casualties on on any Side because I mean like whether or not you're you're part of either organization You know of the military, um If you're not part of that then like you're not necessarily involved and you know, so like you don't Uh expect to you know come come Uh Well back to your house and see it not there see it being leveled never to notice that like and that is absolutely tragic for whoever it happens to Um, I mean like that is definitely just why I would be on the side of just calling for a permanent ceasefire and getting this Shit sorted out, you know, so that so that that sort of stuff stops happening. Um, unfortunately, I just don't really kind of I I would like that to happen. I just don't necessarily see it see it happening anytime soon anyway You got it Anyone else I'm sorry.  What was the question? It was let me reread this To get it in full but basically it's asking whether or not you think that Your side it says please identify one or two things that you can admit that the side you are here to support Is doing wrong morally and what should they be doing differently? Did you hear that? I'll read it again. They say please identify Um broken up one side The side that you're here to defend and is doing a similar um I do think it could be a lot more interested to be uh commentary brought in I think a lot more of it needs me to bring humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip You got it Let me just check for any last questions Norak, thanks for your question We're going to try to let our guests out pretty quick here as I I do have to give huge street cred We always are grateful for our guests. We've got to say thank you to all of our guests Don't worry. I got this last question. Like I said, but I do want to say also Our guests some of them are staying up Extra late, so I'm in central time. It's only like 8 30 here. No problem Cider and port what time is it where you are right now? It is currently 2 30 in the morning Wow, that's hard.  I have a question for you in the morning We uh, we do appreciate our guests and vaguely But we do want to say yes Check out their links in the description and then this last question. I'm actually gonna Let's see. Uh, can you do a debate on Superman versus Goku? Are you mean like who would win? Maybe but want to say huge. Thank you to our guests. Let me just double check last one The bitter truth says is occupation legal? Who pro-israel I think they're saying for the people that are pro-israel that pro-israel team namely you david and soha or Adar they say is occupation legal um As I mentioned earlier, I'm I'm not an expert at international law because I don't think it's enforceable. So I'm not I'm not super interested in it, but From what I understand that the majority of international international lawyers consider a settlement expansion to be illegal Uh, israel and their team of attorneys have a different interpretation of that, but david, maybe you have a different take Yeah, the question is in general is occupation legal and like adar I'm not an expert in in international law but yes Occupation depending on the right of comes circumstances is legal I refer you back to the occupational generally by that forces after world war two Yeah, I think the reality. Uh, what's going on in the west bank? I was going in Gaza. That would be a great question for international lawyer Yeah, I think from my understanding that you can occupy a nation for For military purposes. So for israel to hold the west bank to ensure. Let's say that attacks aren't being Happening from the west bank into israel. I think that's legal but then when it comes to moving your citizens into that occupy territory and Uh, expanding your territory territory into the occupy territory. I think that is the consensus. There's that that's illegal Any last thoughts Um, I know that forcible relocation is illegal Is legal or whatever the case may be I do Is legal forcible relocation Is illegal Whatever the case may be I do think that settlements Like hummus are massive impediment to any piece between the sides You got it anyone else Cool, let me just double check for one last one. I think we're good though I want to say folks check out our links uh guest links in the description Including if you're listening to the podcast as we put our guest links in the description box there as well I want to say a huge thank you. Hey steven adar and david. It's been a true pleasure to have you here with us tonight Thank you so much for hosting james. Thanks so much james. Thanks everyone else I hope you get some good rest folks Stick around I'll be back in just a moment with some updates about upcoming debates So say here and I'll be right back in just a moment Amazing want to say thanks so much for being with us folks.  Seriously. They are the lifeblood of the channel They make this channel rock. They are what have like they've made it fun They've been rockin awesome. So I do want to say we appreciate them to say the least We're excited. We're excited about a lot. So I've got to tell you a couple of things first bitter truth So sorry it was like just the last moment your super chat came in and said can you justify occupation of occupying? um Let me know on the next debate if you want me to read like a A normal chat as a super chat. Well, we can even read it as the very first one I owe you one for that. So I am sorry about that. I uh That was like right on as I went off air. So thank you bitter truth for that last minute super chat I do want to say folks We are excited about a couple things one is We have a lot of debates next week. We've got like three or four booked So I want to give you an example in particular. I think it's Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, we got three then I think we've got One on the weekend that one I have to look up and try to remember what it is So I want to tell you this though as you can see at the bottom right of your screen today's debate is sponsored by visible wireless Folks, you don't want to pay too much for your wireless service. Namely your cell phone. You're walking around using your data Get unlimited talk unlimited text and unlimited high speed data for 20 bucks Technology is improving things are getting better and some things are getting cheaper for just 20 bucks a month You get all that unlimited talk text and data plus unlimited high speed hot spot data Amazing That is linked in the description if you click on our link you will get for just 20 bucks a month Visible wireless for your phone. I highly encourage you to do this. Why because I only promote what I use So this is something I use You're actually getting an even better deal than I so when I signed up I think I got a similar deal, but it was only like three months. Maybe where you got it for 20 and Now what I have is I pay 25 bucks a month, but you will get it locked in for 12 months Where you will get to you'll only have to pay 20 bucks. It's amazing So I highly encourage you visible wireless as you can see at the bottom right of the screen Check out that link in the description box including if you're listening via the podcast That referral link is in the description box right now That supports modern day debate. So we really do appreciate you doing that So if you're kind of thinking if you're like, yeah, I've been thinking about maybe transferring to a different Service provider and maybe it's only like five dollars a month cheaper. You're like, I don't know. I mean I get it for 25 I get the same thing. It's like, well, hey, I mean five dollars a month That's money back in your pocket A dollar saved or I should say a dollar not spent as a dollar saved I highly encourage you check out that link you can use that five bucks treat yourself to a coffee every month What do you want to you know, whatever you want to do? You can we got to tell you We're excited though. I want to say hello to you in the live chat right now trigger warning good to see you our mini us happy to have you here spark 3 4 3 4 4 glad to have you with us. You could be anywhere folks right now. You could be watching The royal rumble for the WWE Amazing that you're here. So I want to say thank you for that. I haven't even I mean this is like This is an important debate you really wanted to be here I really want to be here because I didn't even Not once during the debate did I turn on the royal rumble because I was tempted to pull up Uh, because I've got like I got uh, I'd always get in on that black friday deal with a peacock Or it's like, I don't know like three bucks a month and then you can watch the pay-per-views lie Which is pretty cool But I resisted the temptation and I did not watch royal rumble during this So exciting stuff you guys we have chosen together. It was mutual We chose to be here tonight and I want to say I appreciate you for being with us Marad L Amrani, thanks for coming by lambi happy to have you gypsy lil glad to have you with us a full music happy to have you here SG W a I c happy to have you with us Slaying glad that you're with us. I see they're in the old live chat I want to say my friends. We're excited about a lot in particular youtube is Doing some things that I would actually say are positive I got to say we got to give it to youtube. They have been pushing out our content a ton So modern day debate has had record growth in the last few months Uh, november was our biggest yet with 22,000 new subscribers. So which reminds me if you haven't yet hit that subscribe button Subscribe now while we are small. I'm not joking folks. You're like, ah, it's like you're you're not really small anymore Like 175,000 like you got a lot of subscribers are james Modern day debate is only just beginning its story my friends We have been being we've been very conservative in terms of the risks that we've taken with our In-person events Because you know if you risk it if you roll the dice and you're like, wow, we're gonna do a big event Where you know pay somebody $50,000 because some of these people have honorariums that are that big, you know, they got Seven million subscribers. Some of them are like, well, you know, I'll go I'll come do a debate if you pay me $50,000 or 75,000. That's some of them really do want that. We've never done anything like that. So We've always played it safe, but now we're getting to the point where we're like, hey, like we're sneaking up on 200,000 We are expecting by which thanks to you Again, I just want to say thanks to you We are expecting that modern day debate will probably hit 200,000 subscribers sometime in may so I mean, we're pretty close to being in february here. So that's fast. Like that's just a few months away We think that modern day debate which is crazy to think that we'll say, whoa We're Going to be at that point of saying we have hundreds of thousands of people that are backing this channel So we want to say thanks for all those All of your guys is subscribing. Thanks for your hitting that like button. Thanks for sharing. That's a big thing. I'd say shares Really make a difference if you share it with a friend or a group of friends online the cool thing is that You are objective in their eyes if I go around and I tell people to join, you know, subscribe or watch modern day debate They're like, yeah, this is like of course james like you started modern day debate and all that It doesn't have as much credibility But if you do and you're like, hey, I found this channel It's a neutral channel and they host debates and they have all sorts of topics and You know, they give a fair shot to both sides and you really get to hear both sides Is that if you do that and you say, hey, it's pretty interesting, you know, check it out There's no other channel like it. I mean you could say, hey, well, but what about intelligence squared? I was like, well, this is the kind of a look I'll say it's close But the amount of kind of like lectures that they have is kind of like Are you sure it's a debate channel or it's also it does have a lot of debates and dialogues But sometimes it even has like what seem to be like little mini lectures from just one person Or sometimes it's like a dialogue between people that seem to just agree so I would say modern day debate in terms of like a just very clean cut very clear in terms of what we're doing here Very straightforward. Just hey, it's a debate channel. It's as simple as that There are no essay videos from me. So if I ever decide like, oh, I want to take a hard stance on Israel or Palestine Side or Christianity or atheism or democrats or republicans, whatever I would never do it here. First. I don't really have I don't feel Halled to do that type of content right now, but if I did let's say I was like, oh, I want to like well I'd start my own channel somewhere else Hope you have a different name. It'd be you know, James Coons and you know, just be my views But I will never upload those videos here. I'm never gonna like that'd be some sort of gross hijacking of the channel of if I was like, oh, I'm gonna put my own essay videos out now It's like wait and you said this is neutral for like five years And so now that you've got this huge subscriber base you're gonna try to No, that's not that's weird. We're not doing that. We are walking the walk We're not just talking the talk when it comes to being neutral. Modern day debate is neutral It always has it is now it always has and it always will be a fully neutral channel We're excited about that you can count on that. We appreciate all of your support of that Thanks. I always forget to say this. We should we should talk about this more often Anathema I see other in the whole live chat. Thanks for reminding me We do have channel memberships. So I highly encourage you like hey, check it out consider Becoming a member. I think right now anathema just a heads up that I think that You have the link for joining the matters now channel But that's okay Is uh, just so you know and that that uh Copy and paste chat that you have there but not a problem folks If you want to join modern day debate, you can click or I could say you can find that join button right below the title I want to say though. Thanks so much for being with us. We do appreciate it Otto says imagine it is hard to be truly neutral, especially when someone says really stupid stuff So huge kudos to you. Thanks for your kind words. I appreciate it. Appreciate that a lot Mia shem sausage lips as we love you james. Thank you. Mia. We appreciate that I'm feeling Mia is actually like Earl the postman from halabama. This is not like a Supermodel from Russia, but thanks Mia. Hey way What is it? Have you guys ever noticed that? Hold on. I'm getting hot two seconds. I'm not I know this looks a little bit weird I don't know if you guys know this I get so hot um, I I told the folks before we started I Cut the sleeves off of my dress shirt. So when I do this, I'm not trying to like Give you guys a strip tease. I'm just I get I get sweaty if I don't do this So I have no sleeves on my my dress shirt and then the inside of my blazer It is a remove the liner because it's so hot.  It looks almost like, uh, you know, like it's just been through The app, you know, it's been run through the mill, but the outside, you know Looks just fine and it helps me stay cool. So I love that. I've got to tell you my dear friends were excited Let me I'm gonna take this unbutton the suit. Thanks for your kind words. Todd bobs is show us those sweet shorts james That's right. I and I also wear basketball shorts. You guys know that you guys have seen these so Uh, I'm not wearing Hackies or trousers. This is uh, you have to stay I have to stay cool I've got It's like 75 degrees here Dave Hill says is it is it subway tattoo time?  Because they get hot. I'm actually thinking about just taking the shirt off. It's really hot. I can't help it Uh, but I don't want to do that. That's a little bit weird, but I do want to say thanks for being here Gypsy little thanks for coming by norak. Thanks for coming by Is that it's just Thinking hot in here. That's why I had the fan on during the debate. It was blowing on me because it's just so warm But I've got to tell you Good to see you kisen happy to have you here as well as our minneas trigger warning. Thanks for dropping in Ham thomas. Thanks for coming by As well as my sister's keeper. Thanks for coming by And thanks so much for coming by the lord's day ministry. Happy to have you here as well as human human On dancer. Thanks for coming by she and a zion glad to have you with us reigner rock odison. I'm happy to have you here Oh, it's stinking hot. I'm like It's warm Let's see here Oh Grid thanks for coming by says do you think you will ever do more smaller issue content? I would love to see something like this killing itself defense. Okay. I am I Personally am like, yeah, that's an interesting question. Like I it's a very like it's a fun philosophy question, but it's I don't know if we could do it. It's just that we're really shooting to like Put out the content that most of our viewers will be most engaged by and so Perverts is that I'm thinking But let's see So I gotta be honest I'm just being completely honest with you I personally would find interesting But there are a lot of topics that I personally find interesting like is bitcoin gonna do well like is bitcoin gonna crush it But well, let's say is bitcoin gonna, you know surpass hundred thousand by the end of 2025 I'm like, yeah, it'd be interesting like I personally is like I always I love predicting the future That's why I'm always, you know, hey, who do you think is going to win Trump versus Biden? Like That's something I like asking the guests because I just think it's fun to try to guess the future But it's something that I don't think I could do it as a debate topic. I don't think it'd engage enough people Let's see Otto says amen. Oh, yeah. Thanks. You're kind of as tds versus teflon don Number four point. Oh, thanks for coming by shayna zion. Thanks for coming by And I got to tell you at teen grogu. Thanks for coming by matthew menik. Thanks for menich Am I saying it right? Let me know. Thanks for coming by says get avery from god logic channel versus an atheist or a Mormon or a muslim I will I'm gonna ask avery if he wants to debate daniel kikachu So we're gonna try to set that up. That'd be a really big one. Hey boy three. Thanks for coming by dr. Squash 2023 Thanks for coming by says need to set up standards for the audio. I agree Uh, I didn't realize it uh before the debate started But yeah, I think David must have had limited space available to do the debate You know, I never I can't it's hard for me to blame speakers. You know, sometimes it's just hard to find a place to stream Uh, I agree that we're gonna probably put like a little disclaimer to debaters saying hey We need you to try to find a place that doesn't have an echo but To his life for honor. Thanks for coming by Let's see No rec. Thanks for being with us. We appreciate that My sister's keeper said you should have taken that off when jasmine was here. That's so funny Let's see Uh, Todd bob That's funny. I appreciate your kind words, but that's uh, I want to say for real. Thank you guys Uh, Todd bobs has been here since 5 000 subscribers lol. It's been a wild ride. I tell you it has hasn't it? We've had some crazy debates and some big things happen, right? We're just getting started. Like I said, this is like for for real folks. Join us while we're small This is just the beginning of modern day debate story 175 we're gonna look back at that someday. We're gonna be like, huh remember you're kind of a small channel 175 and We're excited about the future. So thanks everybody for all your love and support. You guys make this fun I'm gonna relax I hope to get some good rest depending out where you are in the world. Uh, maybe I hope you have a productive day I hope it goes well, but thanks again for all your support of modern day debate. Oh, I forgot to mention So at the bottom right of your screen, you know, I already mentioned visible wireless But if you have been thinking about signing up for a gym As you can see at the bottom right of your screen today's debate is sponsored by planet fitness the cheapest and most Convenient gym. It really is. Here's why I work out at planet fitness. I'm not joking. I really do like daily I went there twice today because I just enjoy working out I lift it in the morning and then like an hour before this debate. I did some cardio I went for like a half hour and it's great If you were thinking about going to a gym We have a referral link for planet fitness below Check out that referral link is you guys Even with the annual fee if you count that in it's like $14 a month. You cannot It's difficult to overemphasize the importance of your health Invest in your health This $14 a month you can have all the equipment that you need the stair masters the treadmills the pre-cores And all of the weightlifting stuff you need and I can tell you as a guy that's like really in a bodybuilding and I've played you know, I've done a lot of stuff like bodybuilding and weightlifting and I can tell you Planet fitness has whatever you need. I'm not joking. It really does like everything I need to keep my physique Where I'm like wanting it to be and my strength is that it's like hey Planet fitness has it you just you have to be a little creative once in a while But I mean they have a ton of different machines and stuff like that. So Prioritize your health highly encourage you check out the link for planet fitness below That's in the description box as well Mother father. It's not let me let me put it in there right now. Let's go. I want to say thanks so much though Where is this? I know I know But yeah, I hope you guys do get to see the royal rumble or at least a little bit of it, you know Don't deprive yourself of that. You need you need to see it Is anybody gonna do that?  I can't complain frankly I know a lot of youtube a lot of youtubers complain about youtube and I'm actually I'm pretty happy with youtube I can't complain at all. I like youtube. I like Way there Technically, I think I'm an independent contractor for them, but I will say that Uh, they're kind of like an employer and I like a mess to my employer like I'm happy with them And could it be better? Yeah, it could be better, but generally they've actually loosened up on some things We used to if we ever had a debate on a b o r t i o n that topic would like almost always get us slapped, uh Monetization wise, but now that topic's fine. I'm just being extra careful by not saying it because I'm just saying no I'm not gonna risk it. I want to say thanks so much. Appreciate you guys Keep sifting all the reasonable from the unreasonable. Thanks for all your support. Thanks for all your love.  I hope you guys have a great rest of your night Otto says if you've ever been overweight or you were always that handsome. Thanks. That's funny is Yeah, I was a chunky kid up until like 13 and then I got like really into the gym and Popcorn 56 James would you date an only fans girl? I don't know if It would be if she would think I'm her type or vice versa in other words You know what? I like nice girls and I like girls that are Not to say that an only fans girl can't be nice. Don't get me wrong. You could let me put it another way like more Goody two shoe types. Let's see That's funny norek. No no male stripping for me. Let's see Dave Hill says best shirt ever. That's funny. I appreciate that You're a funny guy Dave Hill and then let's see James Hicks. Thanks for coming by So this is my first live one. I've got the replays before that's cool, man Well, James Hicks, we're glad you're here this first time live And what says regarding the echo a cool tongue outside of the camera view reduces reverb and echo That's a great point. I should tell them to do that I like that Oh, let's see Yeah, I appreciate you hanging out here. Thanks everybody for your support. I hope you have a great rest of your night We'll see you at the next one This is amazing. I hope to see you guys at the next one. Thanks and keep sifting out the reasonable from the unreasonable We'll see you next time


What's up guys, it's Josh and we're back again with another video. Today's part six in my series where I help you get into your dream school. The topic of the day is college essays. I know I made videos on essays before but today's the day where I pour out all my secrets on how I made my essays the best they could possibly be. Let's get into it. Okay, my first tip pertains to when you're trying to choose a topic. My advice is to focus on one specific extra curricular or one moment in your life which can act as a lens through which the admissions officers actually see who you are as a person. If you guys saw the video where I read my Common App Essay, you'd notice that I focused on one specific failure in my life and the effects and the personal relationships that developed because of it. Or in the Yale supplement I wrote about magic, the whole first paragraph sets the reader in a specific scene where I can explain to them what the performance of magic entails without directly spelling it out for them. Be specific in your descriptions and broad in your explanations. Another common mistake that students make is choosing to write about a friend or a grandparent. Although students can often create amazing and well-crafted essays about these people, the admissions officers can't learn anything about you from these essays. Keep in mind the whole purpose of a college essay is to fill in the blank spots on your application and connect all these random numbers and test scores into the person that you are. If you're writing about the relationship with your grandfather, the admissions officers simply won't be able to see that. Another common misconception among students writing college essays is that they think they can use these limited words to kind of build upon their resume or embellish it. You need to keep in mind that the admissions officers have already read your resume, they know all your grades in every single class you took and they've seen your test scores. They do not want to read a 650-word essay about what the National Honor Society is. These essays are meant to show how a specific moment or a specific activity impacted you and changed your view on the world. You only have a limited number of words. Don't use them explaining something that can be seen in other parts of your application. Also, as you're writing your essay, try to ask yourself the following question. What is the significance of this topic that I chose to write about? How has this experience changed who I am today? To what extent was the impact of this experience? The admissions officers aren't going to learn who you are through vague descriptions. They want to see your personal thoughts and mindset. So give it to them. Alright, that's it. I hope you guys learned some more about how to craft your college essays. If you enjoyed the video or something, drop a like, hit that big red subscribe button for me too. Comment down below any questions or concerns or what you thought of the video. Try to respond to everyone. As always, I'll be back again tomorrow at 3pm for another video. See you soon.