Felix retweeted
Crushed it @KonstantinKisin
Dare I say even topping the Oxford union speech
Listen 👇🏼
Felix retweeted
Dear Ms. Johnstone,
Please read a history book. The history of this conflict did not start in 2018. A century ago, when Jews started fleeing Europe to Ottoman provinces, which the British later made into Mandate Palestine, the Jews thought that if they built a modern economy with railways, ports, infrastructure, the Arabs will like them and share the land with them. But they were wrong.
Since DAY ONE (1882), the Arabs in that land have been adamant on keeping Jews away, through violence if necessary. Even before Israel was born, even before Jews formed militias to defend themselves, the Arabs used violence. In 1936, Arabs of Mandate Palestine launched the Great Arab Revolution (notice, not Palestinian revolution). In 1939, Britain conceded to Arab demands for fear of losing the big Arab bloc to the Nazis (compared to the tiny Jewish bloc). Had it not been for Britain that wrestled the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip from the hands of Israel, the whole land would have been Israel and de facto population swap would have happened across River Jordan instead of 1949 Armistice Line.
Since then, Israelis and Arabs agreed on land for peace. In 1993, Israel conceded land to Palestinians, it never got peace because this very Hamas you're defending launched suicide bombings that killed peace. Hamas never accepted peace, pledges to destroy Israel and create an Islamic Arab Palestine. Hamas is not fringe, it won the 2006 election and today commands support of one third of Palestinians, according to polls.
In 2007, Hamas killed over 300 Palestinians with the Palestinian Authority and took over the Gaza Strip. In 2023, Hamas killed 1,400 Israelis. Massacres seem to be their thing, just like their categorical refusal of recognizing Israel or accepting peace.
Please, before you Post love and peace speeches that sound reminiscent of the Summer of Love and Woodstock, read a book on the history of this conflict. Hamas is not a revolution, it's a group of thugs that massacred Palestinians before it massacred Israelis and now hides behind Gazans to get away with its crimes.
I find nothing less morally or philosophically interesting than pontificating on how the traumatized prisoners of a horrible concentration camp should have conducted themselves once they broke free of its confines. As far as I'm concerned everything that happened on that day was the result of generations of Israeli abuse, the British decisions which made it all possible, and the American backing which has kept it going.
Israeli policies created Hamas. I don’t mean this in the usual “Netanyahu boosted Hamas to sabotage peace and undermine its more moderate rivals” sense, I mean it in the "Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable" sense. If you stomp out every possible peaceful avenue of resistance, naturally you’re going to see the rise of factions which favor violent resistance.
One of my most formative experiences in understanding this conflict happened in 2018 when I watched Israeli soldiers firing on protesters with sniper rifles and live ammo. B’Tselem explicitly denounced this as unlawful. There’s nothing that could possibly make such a thing okay, and it was a very clear illustration of the way Israel has cut Palestinians off from all the normal pathways toward peaceful resolution.
I said when all this started that I believe the Hamas attack will ultimately be a net negative for Palestinians, but that I can’t in good conscience “condemn Hamas” because nobody can articulate a positive direction that Palestinians should be taking. The fact that all peaceful avenues of resistance have been cut off is not the fault of the Palestinians, and it’s not the fault of Hamas. It’s the fault of the Israeli government.
Hamas is just what you get when you create an intolerably abusive apartheid state which keeps millions of people in a concentration camp whose inhabitants are cut off from basic human needs. Hamas isn’t the disease, it’s a symptom of the disease. The disease is an apartheid settler-colonialist project which cannot exist without endless violence, warfare and abuse.
Felix retweeted
The pro-Palestine protests that are currently being held across the West elicit such a deep and pre-political feeling of revulsion because they evidently represent a foreign nation asserting itself in our midst.
Liberals are suddenly taken aback by this because it hits liberalism in a particular blind spot. Liberalism processes the world in terms of indistinguishable individual agents each of whom is, theoretically, a rational, self-authoring individual that is consciously following their own conception of the good life.
This conception of a person is demonstrated to be shockingly wrong, as the protests reveal a tribal mindset in which the individual is not something separate from the religion and community, and is certainly not considered to be self-authoring and rational. In fact, devotion to and willingness to act upon the creed is the metric of worthiness, a collective self-denial which is antithetical to the individual self-aggrandisement worldview of liberalism.
Suddenly, it becomes apparent to the average liberal-minded Westerner that there are some things which actually shouldn't be tolerated if the liberal order is going to persist, but it is far too late to put the toothpaste back in the tube.
What are our options, exactly? These protesters have human rights. They have the right to protest, to speak, to denounce our civilisation and tell us to our faces that they plan to take over. What can we do about such things? Nothing, of course, liberalism demands we tolerate such ill-faith. But should we have such people in our societies and organising in such a fashion? Evidently not.
The pre-political revulsion is still there and reveals us not to be the liberals we once thought we were. We know, in our heart of hearts, that we cannot have a safe and stable civilisation without the good will necessary for such an endeavour, and now we are trapped with people who outright repudiate us. Since the only test liberalism could impose on newcomers was "can you follow our rules?" and not "will you join our tribe?", we are conceptually helpless to organise or resist such forward motion on their part.
Nations are held together by the sentimental bonds which provide a tribal framework of agreement and kindness that goes unspoken because it does not need to be said: we are countrymen, therefore we will show one another we have good intentions, respect for each other's interests, and mutual concern for our standing in society.
Put simply, Aristotle was right when he said that the basis of a nation is the bond of friendship.
We can see that many of the pro-Palestinian protesters and their supporters did not consent to joining our tribe and do not extend the hand of friendship to the peoples amongst whom they reside. They hold to the ways of their old countries, and in many aspects view us as rubes who, for reasons unknown to them, allow all of this to happen.
The rules-based worldview of liberalism permits this. Prior to its establishment, in any other time and place, it would be simply unthinkable for a foreign community to desecrate the statues of national heroes and the local idols of our social values. Yet here we are, and the police do nothing to stop it. In other times and places, such transgressions against the gods of a society would be punished most harshly because it would be understood that a foreign community resides here at our pleasure and not from some abstract right, but our authorities cannot even recognise a crime has been committed against the dignity of our country.
The newcomers are not liberals. They are from the old world of tribes. They don't understand why we permit this either, and make no mistake, they don't respect us for this tolerance. They think we are weak when we do not assert ourselves and our interests, and they are not wrong.
Felix retweeted
I am pro-Palestinian. Some might be surprised by this due to my recent advocacy on @X for Israel, but you shouldn’t be.
I am anti-terrorist, not anti-Palestinian. It is not inconsistent to be pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian. And my pro-Palestinian viewpoint is not a new one. My pro-Palestinian perspective began more than 30 years ago when I was introduced to the Palestinian community and their plight in the early 1990s.
I have invested millions in helping promote Palestinian economic development and peaceful coexistence. We would do a lot more if we could be confident that the funds would be used productively.
The crisis in Gaza is largely due to a failure of leadership. The Palestinians elected Hamas in 2006 after Israel withdrew and evicted 9,000 of its own citizens from their Gazan homes. Israel withdrew from Gaza for peace. It was a small scale test of a two-state solution.
Rather than building the Singapore of the Middle East over the last 18 years, Hamas diverted funding to build tunnels, rockets and munitions to wage terror and war in an effort to eliminate Israel and kill Jews.
Like the Israelis, the vast majority of Palestinians want peace. They want opportunities for employment so they can earn a living wage to support and educate their families so the next generation can build a better life.
They want peace, beauty, happiness, health and prosperity as we all do. All of that would have been possible with Gazan leadership which focused on economic development rather than terrorism. Israel and (most of) the world wanted the Gazan experiment to succeed.
Israel simply wanted peace. Israel built a fence and created checkpoints to protect its citizens from suicide bombers and other forms of terror. The Egyptians built a concrete wall at their border with Gaza for the same reasons. The need for a fence and checkpoints is made self-evident by the catastrophic impact on Israel when the fence was breached on Oct. 7th.
Hamas is in the business of terrorism. Hamas makes money with grift, corruption, and funding from Israel’s enemies who support Hamas to achieve their own anti-Israel objectives. Hamas and those that support it don’t care about the Palestinians. The Palestinians are simply a tool to implement their anti-Israel and/or anti-Jew objectives.
Like other businesses, Hamas has a corporate hierarchy where those at the top make thousands of times more than the ‘workers’ at the bottom. Hamas’ leaders have put aside hundreds of millions and even billions for themselves.
Hamas uses their ‘culture’ of terrorism, cash, and other incentives to motivate young, brainwashed —often from youth—, radicalised militants to implement death, torture and destruction. Their ‘success’ at terrorism attracts more funding, amplifies Israel’s response, and the cycle continues.
Hamas does not care about the Palestinian people. Hamas knew with certainty how Israel would respond to the torture, rape, beheading, and slaughter of Israeli women, children, seniors and infants on Oct. 7th.
Hamas’ plan was to hide out in their tunnels and headquarters built under major hospitals, limit evacuations so that Palestinian citizens are exposed to the inevitable Israeli military response, and then rally the world against Israel in a globally coordinated response as innocent civilians die.
Israel has no choice but to destroy Hamas. It cannot allow its survival, as Hamas’ existence remains an existential threat. If ISIS invaded our southern border, we would do the same. We would warn civilians to evacuate and then we would go in and destroy the terrorists. We wouldn’t cease fire until they were obliterated.
The whole situation is an incredible tragedy. While I have always hoped for a viable and peaceful two-state solution, the Gaza experiment has been an abject failure. Future efforts for statehood for the Palestinians must learn from this catastrophe.
As always, I welcome your input, critiques and rebuttal.
What did I get wrong?
Felix retweeted
This video is a 10/10.
Who is she? I want to express my gratitude and admiration for her.
One of the best videos I’ve seen.
Felix retweeted
1/ Here you can see hundreds of Palestinians queuing for food, but they're not in Gaza. They're in Yarmouk, Syria.
Felix retweeted
This conflict weighs so heavily on me. I have Jewish friends and I have Muslim friends. I have a deep affinity for Israel and for Arab culture, and do a lot of work in the Middle East.
But let’s be clear about some things. Anti-Israel + Pro-Palestine demonstrations erupted around the world *before* Israel responded.
BEFORE.
Let's recap that sequence of events.
1. Palestinian militants wake up in the morning and decide to go and murder Israeli civilians, take hostages, and declare their intent to destroy Israel
2. Demonstrations erupt around the world supporting Palestine and condemning Israel
3. Israel responds to this threat
Go back over it again in case there is any ambiguity.
There is no moral grey area to inhabit here. No fog of war that one can hide behind.
Palestinian militants murdered civilians. In cold blood. They raped Israeli women. They set children on fire and beheaded them. Grandmothers were raped so brutally their pelvis was broken. A pregnant woman had her baby cut out of her stomach and beheaded, only to then suffer beheading herself. Palestinian militants murdered Jews, on a mass scale, in the most barbaric and heinous ways possible. And then vowed that they would keep going, to the thunderous applause of their sympathisers living in the West.
Members of our intelligentsia and elite students openly cheered Hamas, laying the blame *entirely* at the feet of Israeli policy. They justified the most barbaric atrocities under the banner of liberation and decolonization.
If you can't see the problem with that, I don't know what else to tell you.
It is easier of course to just keep quiet, to not talk about it. But I am compelled to.
Because 90 years ago, no one spoke up.
Yet.
It is important to recognize that this is war, and in this war, there are people are dying on both sides - children, women, civilians.
Many people have been trying to build bridges to bring about peace – and all their work crumbled just like that. The world before Oct 7 was a different world. Peace in the Middle East was achievable and now, we’re back to reliving ancient hatreds between the sons of Abraham.
One of the problems with discourse today isn’t just about the things we say; sometimes it’s about the things we don’t say.
Even when we think that “our side” may have not been totally right, we hold back from criticizing because we fear weakening the moral standing of “our side.”
So on one side, they cannot criticise Hamas, and on the other, they cannot criticise the Israeli government / IDF. But Hamas isn’t Palestine, and the Israeli government isn’t Israelis / Jews.
This distinction is important. And for those who say “but Palestinians support Hamas overwhelmingly,” please ask yourself exactly what choice you would have if you were born into the same cultural and social milieu?
You’ve heard the phrase the “bigotry of low expectations.” Sometimes it is compassionate to expect less.
Moral clarity is important, but so is being compassionate and not giving up on humanity.
When will we beat swords into plowshares and spears into pruning hooks? When will we no longer take up sword against each other, nor train for war anymore?
I recall the words of Rudyard Kipling:
“What profit to kill men?”
“Very little - as I know; but if evil men were not now slain; it would not be a good world for weaponless dreamers.”
Felix retweeted
Hamas hostage is a 83 year old fighter for Palestinian human rights: Grandson Daniel Lifschitz explains who Hamas kidnapped: one of the first journalists to document the atrocities and slaughter of Palestinians at Sabra and Shatila in Lebanon. foxnews.com/video/6339146232… #FoxNews
Felix retweeted
Unprovoked, Hamas attacked #Israel. First four days, #Hamas's mouthpiece #Qatar's Al-Jazeera was hailing the Deluge of Al-Aqsa, reporting on Israeli confusion and intelligence failure and the great success and prowess of "resistance." Three days into the attack, Al-Hamas and Jazeera were still bragging that Hamas fighters were still killing Israelis outside Gaza and that sirens were sending Israelis (including cabinet meeting) to bomb shelters.
THEN Israel reacted.
Since then, the Deluge of Al-Aqsa has turned into "WE Palestinians are victims, please help us, Israel is committing war crimes."
Conclusion: Like I wrote on day one, Hamas and Al-Jazeera have always been conflicted between proving that Hamas is strong enough and can beat Israel, and showing that Palestinians are helpless victims of Israeli merciless war.
That Hamas's criminality against Israelis provoked Israeli reaction is a connection that Hamas, Al-Jazeera, and their US friends will never make. They want to destroy Israel, and they expect Israel to sit back and ask for more. Only then, the Jewish state will be considered nice, humane, and playing by international rules.
Felix retweeted
There are so many reasons to not launch anything new in this season, but instead to wait until greener pastures (and a bull market). It makes sense to hold back and to stay as lean as possible; to not try anything new, but to find comfort in the predictable nature of where you are.
But here’s the thing: none of us are promised tomorrow. We’re not promised another bull run.
If you live your life only waiting for what you hope may one day come, you’re going to spend it waiting for a whistle that may never blow. Aspiration is often the first thing that’s sacrificed in difficult times. We focus more on surviving than we do on thriving.
But this is why we knew that this was the perfect time and place for @moonbirds Mythics. For a story about what it means to come up against seemingly insurmountable odds, and to hold strong with those convictions. To look fear in the face and declare that it won’t have the last word.
I’m so damn proud of the art in this collection. Both @ColinHesterly and @Auldrobot have worked tirelessly to create a collection that isn’t just aesthetic, but has a piece of each of them deeply ingrained into the aesthetics and lore. Their love for the art of the world we’re building is deeper than any single artifact can possibly contain.
I’m so damn proud of our product team. For @delvallecrypto @itstyfortune and @saadiq in making sure that the flow is unique, delightful, and informative. Their craft shines though every pixel. Their art is just as powerful on the screen.
I’m so damn proud of our engineering team. For folks like @MeltingIce @Tuanderful @furf @cxkoda and @divergencearran who have worked around the clock to ensure that this experience is technically sound, scalable, fair, and secure. Working with them is a master class in bringing all of us along the journey, even when they need to explain how some of the technicalities work. Grateful for their passion for excellence and their love of teaching.
For our amazing community team, with folks like @akastevey_ @bennyhsu_xyz @GirlNFTFunds @AleksInWeb3 and @forestanderson for being present to answer questions and to consistently answer questions and show love to the people who show up for us around the clock.
For our incredible events that @MaggiRichmond and team put on, because they know just how important it is to be present for people, and to share a truly human experience with those around us. It’s their careful curation that makes every event feel elevated to a degree I never thought possible. They’re storytellers in their own right.
That’s not everyone. Mythics is the culmination of all the amazing folks from PROOF across a variety of disciplines and functions giving of themselves to make something great.
And of course to every one of you. We are able to do what we do at @proof_xyz because of each one of you. Our community defines this space and this ecosystem. It is every one of you that gives us the space to create, to explore, and to deliver these things. I’ll be forever grateful to be on this journey with you.
From the very bottom of my heart, thank you for caring. Thank you for being here. Thank you for believing in this wild dream about owls and magic and a world shaped by fear that is about to be reshaped by courage and the truth that “you are worthy”.
This is all a story about remembering the creative power within all of us. And it’s a power that will stand the test of fear. It’s a power that is a part of each one of us.
And I’m so fucking happy that we can share it and shape it with each one of you. ❤️
Felix retweeted
Let's do a little giveaway. 🍝💀
Two lucky souls will get an edition each:
1. Hell of a Dish 1/85
2. Whack a Soul 1/65
This is for folks who don't hold these.
Retweet, like, post gifs and have fun.
I'll announce the winners in a couple of days.
Felix retweeted
GM. What a wild and turbulent few months... Now that we're half way through the year, I wanted to post a mini 'State of Moonbirds' -- a thread 🧵... [1/18]
Felix retweeted
Spaces with the Doodles community council in three hours. Hope you can make it! Spread the word! @moonbirds @doodles @proof_xyz teapaw.org/i/spaces/1vAxRArMbagJl
Felix retweeted
The Price of Time
In my younger days I spent many nights at the poker table.
The casino had a nightclub. Men would stumble out, ladies on their arms, all laughing and tipsy.
A stop by the tables, and I'd separate them from their money.
One morning, heading home after long night of winning, it hit me:
The loser at the table that night, was actually me.
My opponents were having fun, I was at work.
I'd leave with the chips. They'd leave with the girls.
I made a pact with myself that day...
To always ask -
Is the *time cost* of this victory, greater than the prize?
Maybe this means doing more of the things you can only do while young...
Saying no to a year of school, and yes to a year of travel.
Saying no to a steady job, yes to a risky start-up.
Or when you're older... and you have even less time - saying no to more work, and yes to your kid who wants to play.
Or going to visit parents, who have even less time than you
Instead of going to a party, when there will always be another.
I encourage you to look at every decision with the mindset that TIME has a PRICE.
Ask yourself, even if something is free - or is making you money -
Is it worth what I will pay for this, with time?
Felix retweeted
Me, by me @doodles. Go create your Doodle in The Stoodio — Pharrell Pack airdropping May 5: stoodio.doodles.app
