Response to @MrMiddlepath, respectfully

Okay. So mister Middlepath, a YouTube channel, he posted a video yesterday that was very respectfully objecting to a few of my stances or what he perceived to be my stances. So I thought I would take some time, briefly anyway, to clarify what my stances are. Not only because I think that this is a really good brother, but also because the views that he expressed, I think, have been expressed by many other people and I think a lot of people share his views and his reaction to some of my stances is the reaction of a lot of people to some of my stances. So I think it might be useful not only to him but to others if I try to sort of clarify those positions in a video.

So the first thing that he talked about was he believes that my advocacy of a one state solution for the Palestinian situation is naive. And I've heard that a lot. That's the most common criticism of that belief. He doesn't deny that what I proposed in terms of a one state solution to the Palestinian situation, he doesn't deny that that would result in a Palestinian Muslim majority in Israel. I mean, if the West Bank in Gaza were to be incorporated into Israel on the condition that all of the inhabitants of the Palestinian territories would be granted full citizenship and full citizenship rights.

He acknowledges that this would result in a Palestinian Muslim majority in Israel because obviously it would. However, he believes that this will not be sufficient. This won't this won't end the issue because he says that the Jews, the Zionists, will come up with some sort of mechanisms to ensure that the Palestinians are not able to vote them out of office and get into office themselves. And he says that nowhere in history have you ever seen an oppressed majority, successfully wrest power from an oppressive minority. Well, this is clearly not the case.

I mean, he he strangely, in my opinion, mentioned South Africa as an example where the majority, did not succeed, against an oppressive minority. But quite obviously they did. I mean, apartheid ended and they have, one man, one vote and they've had a black South African government ever since. You could say the same about Zimbabwe or Namibia or many other countries. In fact, you can say it about, you know, any of the formerly colonized countries.

This has been the case. You could say that this was also the case even in Ireland. You could also point to, the American South with the civil rights movement. Or you could look at Latin America, Bolivia, and Ecuador, Guatemala, and, many other countries where the indigenous population has gained power in the government. So there are many, many examples actually, of formerly oppressed indigenous majority populations gaining political power against the oppressive, you know, formerly government of minority of a minority group.

And I don't think that there's any rational reason to believe that this would not be the case with the Palestinians. But now the reason he said that South Africa is not a good example is because South Africa still has problems with racial imbalances in wealth and power. But this is a separate issue. I mean, this has to do with the political corruption of the elected government themselves, whether black or white, whether Palestinian or Jewish. And this is going to be an ongoing issue in any society.

I mean, I'm sure that if you had a one state solution and people like Abu Mazin, Mahmoud Abbas and the Palestinian authority officials, if they were still around when that situation materializes and they got elected into the government in Israel, that political corruption would be a major issue. But this is its own problem, and that's a problem for another day. But what you would definitely not have anymore is a blockaded Gaza with continuous air strikes and bombings, and it would have a state that has mechanisms for civil struggle against the Bantustan situation in the West Bank, against segregation, against discrimination, and so on. What you would have is a new paradigm in which the struggle for Palestinian rights would be a civil rights struggle, not a struggle between life and death. And, of course, normalization will inevitably have economic and cultural influence on the society in Israel.

Greater integration into the Arab world, into the Muslim world, increased trade, increased investment and so on. All of that has an impact on the tone of the society, on the nature of the society, on the attitudes of the society and it disincentivizes hostility towards the Palestinians and it increases the leverage of the Arab world, of the Muslim world for influencing the trajectory of the country, the trajectory of the society, the culture of the society. And there's nothing naive about that. Rather, it's incredibly naive, and in fact heartless to advocate for anything else, to be frank. Certainly, you're advocating for the same approach of the last half century, which has achieved nothing whatsoever but increasingly worse conditions for the Palestinians.

This is the only realistic approach. It's the only realistic solution. And quite frankly, it's inevitable. And on this, I would like to just sort of add as a as a side note: a good deal of my analysis is just me looking at things the way they actually are, looking at what's actually happening. And I'm just pointing it out.

I'm not necessarily for it or against it. I'm neither endorsing it nor objecting to it. I'm just saying what I see as objectively as I possibly can. And at most what I might do is point out what I see that may be beneficial or may be harmful about what's happening. I may talk about opportunities that might exist because of what I see happening or dangers that might exist because of what I see as happening.

But I think some people don't know quite what to do or how to respond to objectivity. You know? It's like if I say that it's going to rain based on the clouds overhead, it doesn't mean that I'm hoping it's going to rain or that I think it would be wonderful if it rains. I just think that that's what's going to happen based on what I see and you might want to know so that you can prepare as needed. I think it's important to have an accurate picture of what's going on in the world, as divorced as possible from agendas and ideologies and emotions.

I mean, it was hilarious to me to see the comments section in my video reaction to the MBS interview when people couldn't decide whether or not I was promoting MBS or I was attacking MBS. Because some people just can't take objectivity objectively. You know? Their emotions and their ideologies get triggered. And I'm telling you, you need to check this about yourself because being that way makes you incredibly vulnerable to manipulation.

That's a very weak way to move around in the world. And you will get conned and you will get misled and you will be toyed with. But okay. Getting back to the brother's comments. What was the other thing?

He said he objected to to me saying that things in rural Turkey didn't actually change very much for most people when Ataturk did what he did because he said that most people don't live in rural areas, they live in urban centers, they live in cities, that's where they go to get their jobs and so on. So it was a big deal. But in 1924, most Turks did live in small villages in the rural areas. It was an agrarian society, and most of them were not affected by what Ataturk did. The policies of Ataturk were not really enforced that much in the villages and in the countryside, so I stand by that statement.

Then he mentioned the harsh repression of Muslims in places like Kazakhstan. I don't deny that. There absolutely has been. But none of those countries, Kazakhstan itself, and none of those countries were part of the Ottoman Empire. They were part of the Russian Empire.

So what Ataturk did had no effect on them whatsoever. They had nothing to do with Ataturk and he had nothing to do with them. Now he also suggested, that I think it's fine, what Ataturk did. That's not what I said. I said it didn't have a huge impact on the daily lives of most people because it didn't.

And I also said that all of the various, societal trends, and changes that occurred over the last hundred years would very likely have occurred either way with or without Azturk, with or without the Ottoman Empire, because they would have. And I'm not saying that any of that's fine. I'm just saying that it wasn't the catastrophe that we're made to believe it was. Okay. So then he goes on to talk about what he thinks is my denial of the repression of Uighur in China.

Again, I have not denied that the Uighur are being repressed. I just don't believe the most outrageous and the most outlandish allegations in this regard because there's no reason to believe those allegations. There's no reason to believe those most outrageous allegations because they're not credible. The Uighur are being oppressed because they have engaged in a violent separatist movement funded by The United States. And the repression that they're suffering in China is religious in nature because they incorporated Islam into their separatist movement.

So to one extent or another, the Chinese authorities, the Chinese government believe that they need to indoctrinate Islam out of the minds of the Uighur. Since the Uighur themselves, chose to base their separatist claims on their Muslim identity. I mean, Muslims all over China are not being similarly mistreated as the Uighurs, so it's pretty clear, what the reasons are for what's happening. The Chinese want the Uighurs to consider themselves Chinese because they are in China and they have Chinese citizenship. So what can be substantiated in my opinion is that they are putting the Uighurs, any Uighurs who they feel are sympathetic towards the separatist cause which to them means that what what how they understand sympathy to the separatist cause is that if you're too religious.

So they're putting those people into reeducation camps against their will for usually months at a time where they will be subjected to constant indoctrination and they will receive some sort of work training. It's unquestionably wrong. It's unquestionably a violation of their human rights, and it is unquestionably not a genocide. Now a genocide has happened and is happening against the Rohingya, but China isn't doing that. And the, Rohingya are not CIA funded, so no one's talking about that.

What's happened to the Rohingya, what's happened to those people is indescribably worse than anything that the Uighurs are suffering. But their victimization is not particularly useful to American geostrategic goals in the region. So no one is throwing their shirt at the Myanmar embassy in London over that issue. Now finally, again in relation to the Uighur issue, the brother says that, sometimes it is justified to oppose and rebel against the rulers. Yeah.

Okay. The Chinese Communist Party is not Muslim. So the the hadiths about obedience to the ruler do not apply in this case. I mean, except in terms of, you know, the principle of not doing harm, not making the situation worse, not making matters worse for the people. You know, if rebelling against the ruler or rebelling against the government in any given situation is gonna predictably make the situation worse, then you're not supposed to do it.

And then he his last criticism, as I recall, was to sort of combine the arguments about the Uighurs with the separatist movement, saying that sometimes separatist movements are justified. Okay. Sure. Sometimes separatist movements are justified. But having the right to do something doesn't mean it's the right thing to do.

I mean, with the Uighur situation. Let's pretend that the Uighurs break off from China. Okay? They establish East Turkestan. Who's gonna be their biggest trading partner?

And who's gonna be in a position to dictate the terms of trade to the Uighur? It's gonna be China, of course. Your independent breakaway nation will have no independence whatsoever. It's pointless. All you will actually do is make your people more vulnerable, more exploited, more dependent, weaker, and more helpless than they ever were before.

It's not a good plan. Think it through. In this particular case, the separatist leaders are all sponsored by The United States. So any government that, East Turkestan would form would be an American client government. It'd be a client state, which would be of no particular interest to The US except as a source of antagonism and conflict between them and China.

The US wouldn't be the slightest bit interested in the welfare or the prosperity or the safety or the security of the Uighurs just like they're not the slightest bit interested or concerned about the Kurds or the Armenians. The big ambitions of completely dependent landlocked wannabe independent states, their big ambitions are only ever used by The United States to manipulate them for their own geostrategic purposes and to potentially exploit any resources that they may have. Unfortunately, the fact of the matter is that sometimes the only best option is to make the best of a bad situation. Now the brother said that he was gonna make a part two in which he was gonna criticize what he says is my belief that Saudi Arabia and Mohammed bin Salman are the brightest hope for the Ummah. This again is a misreading of what I've said.

Saudi Arabia is doing what they're doing, whether you like it or not, whether I like it or not. They're doing what they're doing. And I'm simply pointing out what they're doing and I'm saying and I'm looking for, anything that might be beneficial for the ummah in what they're doing. This is an objective analysis, no more, no less. You can take it or leave it.

You can feel about it however you want to feel about it. And however you do feel about it is what will determine, whether you think I'm pro Mohammed bin Salman or anti Mohammed bin Salman. I'm neither. I'm just looking at what is actually happening and trying to perceive how what's happening can be useful for establishing Muslim economic sovereignty and political independence. Feelings have nothing to do with it as far as I'm concerned.