The first two options make sense but this latter option sounds like a risk. As I understand it, she can't earn any active income from this startup unless see has an I-129 for it. A share grant counts as income.

I mean, yeah you can work on a side project in your spare time that could become a business, but the moment employment and active income enters the picture that becomes something else.

The entire premise of your question is misaligned with the intention of the H1-B visa. Yes, everyone abuses its intent, but that isn't justification for more people to find more ways to abuse it. The abuse of that visa (and other visas) is why folks just want it abolished outright. I guess the purpose of a system is what it does, but it was sold to the American electorate as a way for companies to get access to talent that they simply cannot find domestically.

Trying to use the H1-B to hire a very specific person instead of any person with the skillset needed for the role would be in contradiction with the labor market test (LMT) needed for PERM status.

An H1-B can only work for the employer on the I-129 petition. There are some forms of passive income allowed but to placing shares in a trust and having an unpaid board seat just seems like an attempt to cheat the process because ultimately the goal is for her to work for this startup. Doing what your proposing puts a target on her head where anyone that is anti-H-1B can report her to USCIS and get her deported.

Moving home, working remotely and then applying for an L-1 seems like the correct approach here for what you're trying to do.

https://www.osti.gov/opennet/servlets/purl/453701.pdf

Google's Ngram viewer isn't working for the term "Ben Gurion Canal" for some reason, but it would show approximately when renewed interest started getting traction since the proposal was declassified in 1996.

I wouldn't be surprised if the 2021 Evergreen fiasco was contributory to this renewed interest but this is pure speculation on my part.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t52LB2fYhoY

Who knows where the balance actually lies, but it's not just pro-Palestinians doing the propaganda here. Israel has engaged in far more propaganda than pretty much everyone (except maybe the United States) since the hasbara policy was first established following the public image fallout from the Sabra and Shatila massacre.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabra_and_Shatila_massacre

'''The charges are serious, and the evidence backing them up abundant. Nevertheless, seven months later the Arbcom case is still pending. The reason is systemic: in a lengthy request for arbitration on a separate PIA case, one of Wikipedia’s arbitrators noted that the final decision-making panel is staffed by 12 volunteers, only 10 of whom are active. “It is clear that AE [arbitration enforcement] has run out of steam to handle the morass of editor conduct issues in PIA,” the arbitrator wrote. “PIA is a Gordian knot; and AE has run short of knot detanglers.”

Electing more Arbcom members would require a massive overhaul of the site’s governing regulations, a task akin to the US government amending its constitution. And though Wikimedia Foundation, which owns the site, has around $500 million in assets, because of the air-gap between Wikipedia and WMF and the volunteer ethos of Wikipedia’s mission not a penny can be used to hire people to oversee contentious topics.'''

There likely are thousands upon thousands of hours of footage from October 7th from private/personal security cameras and also from the camera equipment on the attack helicopters and tanks.

Yet, despite all the footage that likely exists, a total of 46 minutes has been screened for the purpose of hasbara.

We could easily have an actual accounting of which of the 1200 were killed by Hamas and which were killed by the IDF if there was actual transparency and all the footage was released instead of selectively released to insinuate that 100% of the deaths were committed by Hamas.

Absent transparency, I'm inclined to place most of the 1200 deaths on IDF. There's more than enough footage of testimonials from IDF soldiers afterwards talking about how they engaged on October 7th to know for certain that they killed many of their own either due to the fog of war or due to the Hannibal Directive.

Personally, I would not be surprised if more than half of the 1200 were killed by the IDF given the ratio between how much footage has been shown relative to how much footage exists.

Absent transparency, the only fair thing to due is assume an intent to maximally deceive the public about what actually happened on October 7th.

In many ways, this is comparable to how the United States was misled about January 6th, 2021. A lot of the footage released in March 2023 contradicted much of the narrative that was spun in the weeks following Jan 6th, 2021. Even now, a lot of the footage still has yet to be released and we still have no idea how many undercover agents and other agent provocateurs were in the crowd that day.

It was a strange day, with a lot of moving parts. Some people died but nobody (Sicknick) was beaten to death with a fire extinguisher

We've seen footage of Hamas fighters literally strolling Israeli villages and cities basically unopposed for hours, of course they could easily kill tons of people.

Seriously, just stop. If you find yourself in a position trying to defend a terrorist attack on civilians (on either sides) it means you lost the plot somewhere along the way.

And this is coming from someone who thinks that what has/is happening in Gaza is horrible and that is pro a 2 state solution.

Yet another strawman.

I'm guessing you have no practical experience with firearms otherwise you'd argue the points I'm making.

> If you find yourself in a position trying to defend a terrorist attack on civilians (on either sides) it means you lost the plot somewhere along the way

I don't know how you arrived at the view that I'm defending a terrorist attack. I'm asking for an accurate account of what happened by the terrorists on both sides on October 7th.

Yes, if you have policies like the Hannibal Directive and the Dahiya Doctrine and your politicians actively advocate in defense of the rape of prisoners of war, you're as much as terrorist as Hamas. Let's not forget that the country was founded from the violence of the Irgun, Lehi, and Haganah.

I'm happy to condemn terrorism by Hamas. Will you likewise condemn the terrorism committed by the IDF? I ask because "if you find yourself in a position trying to defend a terrorist attack on civilians (on either sides) it means you lost the plot somewhere along the way."

The point is you are going lengths to try and prove what exactly? That Hamas only killed 800 people and took another 200 hostage as opposed to 1200? Does it matter? And will you also do the same to investigate and see how many Gazans did Hamas kill with failed rockets and explosives?

What are you trying to achieve here?

I'll say it again, you lost the plot.

1195 people were killed on October 7th. My understanding is that 815 of these were civilians. This means that 380 were IDF. This is a ratio of 2.15 civilians killed for each combatant.

The IDF considers a 2:1 ratio "tremendously positive" [1].

Now this ratio largely depends on the belief that the Israeli civilians and IDF combatants were all killed by Hamas combatants.

If, however, the evidence (all the video footage) were to demonstrate that Hamas was far more measured and actually killed far fewer civilians, then it starts to look a lot less like terrorism and more like military action between two combative forces with unfortunate civilians caught in the crossfire in a combat zone.

For comparison, let's take Pearl Harbor. 2341 soldiers and 68 civilians were killed. Was it an act of war? Absolutely. Was it an act of terror? No. Pearl Harbor had a ratio of 0.03 civilians killed per combatant. None of what I'm saying is defense of Pearl Harbor. I'm just objectively describing what occurred for the sake of comparison to the conflict at hand.

I can't seem to find a breakdown of the 251 hostages that were taken on October 7th in terms of how many were civilians and how many were active duty or reserve IDF. Is it terrorism to take civilians hostage? Yes. Is it terrorism to take enemy combatants as prisoners of war? No. (That said, all POWs should be treated with dignity while in captivity. It's pretty clear that one side has treated their POWs with far more dignity than the other side in this conflict.)

October 7th didn't happen in a vacuum. This is an ongoing conflict spanning almost 80 years. How the Hamas combatants collectively conducted themselves on October 7th absolutely changes the framing on how to interpret what happened that day. If the majority of the civilian death were in fact caused by the Hannibal Directive, then it looks a lot more like a act of war than an act of terror. Not saying it can't be both. There's a spectrum here. But up until now, we've largely been led to believe one interpretation while a LOT of evidence that would provide a much clearer objective picture of what happened has been withheld.

Furthermore, Israel is a country with compulsory military service. This largely blurs the distinction between combatant and civilian. Citizens serve in the IDF at age 18 and you can be a reservist until 41 for soldiers and 46 for officers. Both men and women serve. The compulsory service pretty much creates a condition where every man and woman between 18 to 46 may be either active duty or a reservist. My guess is that approximately 34% of Israeli society is a potential combatant and that this ratio would be higher the closer you are to military bases, as was the case with the kibbutzim near the Gaza border.

> The point is you are going lengths to try and prove what exactly?

Anyways, I'm not trying to prove anything. I'm demanding that what folks claim happened on October 7th actually be proven using all the available evidence. The entire justification for relation and the initial acceptance of that retaliation by Israeli was largely based on what we have been led to believe happened on October 7th. What actually happened matters. US involvement in the conflict was predicated on the current belief of what happened. We've sacrificed our nation's national security and reputation on the international stage based on beliefs about what happened. Thank God we at least haven't sacrificed our warfighters in service of this conflict.

I've honestly been shocked that no one really demands all the evidence be presented before believing any of the claims made. Nothing about October 7th is black and white and the discussion would be a lot clearer if we actually had all the evidence of what actually happened that day and we weren't basing our opinions on what we've been lead to believe by propaganda and the intentional omission of evidence that most certainly exists. "Truth is the first casualty of war"

> And will you also do the same to investigate and see how many Gazans did Hamas kill with failed rockets and explosives?

Yes, totally support that. It's documented here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_rocket_attacks_on_...

Here's data on casualties on both sides: https://www.ochaopt.org/data/casualties

[1] https://edition.cnn.com/2023/12/05/middleeast/israel-hamas-m...

But no, it was all really a legitimate military operation.

Again, you lost the plot. Atrocities have been committed by both sides, I'm not sure what are you trying to accomplish here.

Where's the footage from the AH-64 Apache helicopters that engaged? Did the helicopters distinguish between Hamas combatants and festival goers? How can they distinguish between the two since Hamas combatants don't really possess uniforms beyond the green headbands that make positive identification of enemy combatants very difficult during a firefight?

RPGs are a precious commodity for any fighting force, but especially one as supply constrained as Hamas. I find it incredibly hard to believe that any combatant force would use so many of them to inflict this level of anti-material damage to this many non-military vehicles at a music festival: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P1T51_iroHo

> Again, you lost the plot.

I'm not interested in a plot. I'm interested in hard evidence that provides and objective view of what actually happened. The little evidence we have from the festival does not support damage commensurate with what an insurgent force with small arms and a limited number of RPGs has the capacity to inflict.

I'm sorry, there's just no denying that Hamas committed atrocities, there's enough footage to show that they well pretty well armed and were shooting and killing people indiscriminately and had enough explosives to "casually" throw them.

And if what you are trying to claim is true then where is the footage from Hamas that shows that? There's no doubt that they had footage from the events, so where is it?

Hamas has all the incentives to show that it didn't commit war crimes, and yet we've seen nothing from them, which should raise an even larger suspicion.

> And if what you are trying to claim is true then where is the footage from Hamas that shows that?

Who do you think released the footage from the Hamas combatants? They were using GoPros and other cameras with local recording and when the militants were killed, the IDF took possession of the recording devices. How many devices were being used? How many minutes of footage were there from these devices? What aren't the contents of these devices released unedited in their entirety. To date all we have is basically a selectively edited 46 minute video released by the Israeli government that compiles everything they want us to see from October 7th and nothing they don't want us to see.

Between the myriad lies that have been debunked (40 beheaded babies, baby in an oven, rapes, etc.), every one should be demanding more primary unedited evidence of what happened so we can actually pass judgement based on evidence. A link to a video of testimonies from people that almost certainly served in the IDF at some point and possibly could still be reservists, is something that should be taken with a grain of salt. These interviews also came out in the days following the festival after such folks had been questioned about what happened and possibly prepped about what they should and should not say to the media.

In that 7 to 8 minute video, there's like 1 maybe 2 minutes of video showing actual actions of Hamas operatives. You have video of them shooting at something in the distance (at who is unknown). You have video of them shooting at cars driving towards them where you don't know who was inside and who was shot. You have video of them throwing grenades in a car and them being tossed out by the occupant of the car. You have video of someone being taken prisoner with zip ties. All of these are very short clips taken from longer footage and selective edited/disclosed. Where's the rest of the footage? What does the rest of the footage show?

Furthermore, the conceal carry license rate in Israel is estimated at 10%. This even exceeds the rate of 8.4% for the US. Approximately 6 to 7% of Americans served in the armed forces. 69% of Israeli men served in the IDF and 56% of women (2019 figures).

In the US, in the event a violent event involving firefights, there's a pretty good chance that a non-trivial portion of Americans of fighting age represent an armed threat or a potential threat with military training (e.g. initially unarmed but could pick up a rifle from a slain combatant and then present a threat). That likelihood is far greater in Israel than in the US.

Japanese Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto lamented that “there would be a rifle behind every blade of grass” when explaining why Japan would not consider trying to invade the US in WWII. That same sentiment applies to Israel and makes identifying friend or foe or non-combatant very difficult.

Compulsory military service is a double-edged sword. There are the obvious benefits for national defense, but it also creates a liability for all individuals of fighting age in the event of an armed conflict. Trying to judge an armed conflict in a country or region from a lens of a country of region where most folks are unarmed and have no small arms training is a fools errand. For example, if you're in California, you're from a region where 0.31% of the population has a conceal carry license. I would suspect that those with military experience and/or small arms training is similarly low.

It's pretty much impossible to judge how an armed conflict unfolded in a place with a wildly different reality in these respects. Just using the United States as an example, if an armed conflict were to occur some place like the Idaho panhandle, it would be very different than an armed conflict in San Francisco. Or pick any two places in the US with wildly different rates of conceal carry permits, firearm ownership, military service and small arms training.

With all this in mind, the firefight videos I've seen are not really out of line with what I'd expect in any region with very high rates of conceal carry permits, firearm ownership, military service and small arms training.

> Hamas has all the incentives to show that it didn't commit war crimes, and yet we've seen nothing from them, which should raise an even larger suspicion.

Assume for a moment that they didn't commit war crimes (I don't actually believe this, but the hypothetical matters here). How do you demonstrate something that didn't happen? Selective video footage disclosure can only show things that did happen, not things that didn't happen. Only with holistic mass disclosure of all available video evidence existence can you actually start to infer what likely didn't happen.

What you could ask that is totally reasonable is why they haven't released footage showing what the IDF did that day? Did any of the Hamas combatants recording GoPro footage make it back with footage that shows the actions of the IDF. I think this is reasonable question to ask.

The biggest issue I see here is survivorship bias (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias). Those Hamas combatants most likely to have been engaged in gunfire with IDF soldiers, tanks and helicopters would have been the most likely to have been KIA, and their footage captured. The footage most likely to capture the actions of the IDF that day are the most likely to be in the possession of the IDF following the end of the armed conflicts that day. Those Hamas combatants that fled back to Gaza once they had a hostage before engaging with enemy combatants would have footage from that day showing their actions but not the actions of the IDF if they didn't exchange gunfire. What I want to know is what the IDF did that day. We can be certain the footage exists and we aren't being shown it. I understand why its being omitted, but everyone should be naturally skeptical of claims without that evidence.

Anyways, my main point is that we should be demanding all the raw unedited footage from October 7th from both sides. Without that, all we have is propaganda from both sides because we can't judge what happened holistically. We can only judge based on what we've been very selectively shown, which certainly isn't anything approximating the truth of what happened that day.

So is leveling a country if you want to demonstrate consequences of an attack.

We should not argue like this, but this is the level you propose and demand with your justifications for terrorist attacks.

In another comment I just made I raise a question about the makeup of the 251 hostages. I'm genuinely interested in knowing how many of them were civilian hostages and how many are IDF soldiers and therefore prisoners of war.

This same question applies to the hostages that Israel has taken as well. They are portrayed as prisoners/detainees, but other than the legitimate combatants, all others are effectively hostages as well.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_detentions_in_the_Israel%...

relevant illustration: https://www.reddit.com/r/PropagandaPosters/comments/16w6g5l/...

The vast vast majority of Jews in Israel now are Ashkenazi. Ashkenazis are from Khazaria and converted to Judaism between 740 and 920 AD. Even from this population, there is a bottleneck around 600 to 800 years ago where the population was down to 350 individuals [1].

By and large very very few Jews in Palestine/Israel are able to claim Levantine/Semitic genetic ancestry.

Many Palestinians and other Levantine people in Palestine who now practice Islam are far more likely have to have ancestors that were once Jewish that actually lived in historical kingdom of Israel prior to 70 AD when Titus and Vespasian crushed a revolt there.

The ancestors of these folks that today practice Islam in Palestine likely converted to Islam sometime after 637 AD when Arabs started to settle in Palestine.

It's pretty commonly accepted all over the world since basically forever that ownership is bequeathed from parents to children. This means that those who are Islamic today but whose genetic ancestors practiced Judaism in the past and lived in the historical kingdom of Israel have far greater claim to the land than folks who have no genetic ancestry to the Kingdom of Israel and instead have ancestry with no genetic relationship that converted to Judaism about 1105 to 1285 years ago.

[1] https://www.timesofisrael.com/ashkenazi-jews-descend-from-35...

Broadly speaking, any philosophy that rests on an oldest-claims-first metric are guaranteed to cause violence.

Information degrades the further we go back; you’re prioritising the wishy-washiest sources of truth. And the nature of human migration and interbreeding means the further you go back, the less likely you are to find genetic ancestors of the people who currently control the land. The people alive on the land you want them off. People with guns.

(The theory is also fundamentally based on the notion that racial migration is wrong. Immigrants to America have less claim than white Americans, who have less claim than natives, except for all the natives who were conquered each other because they moved around too.)

> The theory is also fundamentally based on the notion that racial migration is wrong.

There are no human races, though, at least not ones based on phenotypical traits. Genetic analysis can reveal indications of regions and ethnic origins but these are barely linked to phenotypical traits and cannot be inferred from the latter. Linguistic communities are the bearers of a shared culture, not anything related to the bogus and outdated concept of "human races." It's also worth pointing out that the claim that "racial migration is wrong" does not follow from any of the other considerations, nor is it needed to support them in any way. I suppose you meant to say the opposite, that the view that racial migration is wrong cannot be morally justified because historical justifications are wrong? Otherwise I don't get the final remark.

Race is a social construct. That doesn’t mean it isn’t real. The constructs of “Israeli” and “Palestinian” are as real and deadly as the geographical boundaries they each draw.

> suppose you meant to say the opposite, that the view that racial migration is wrong cannot be morally justified because historical justifications are wrong

If one’s ancestors define legitimate claims to where one can live, then one cannot legitimately live where one’s ancestors were not. In a weird way, the historical returners do a full swing to the xenophobic anti-immigrant types. (There are people who I’ve heard seriously argue that accepting Palestinian refugees is literally genocide.)

Exactly. Otherwise, anyone could claim anything since we all share the same ancestry, going back to the same primates or something[0]. We should focus on the issues at hand and work to avoid making the situation worse. Forcing all Israelites or Palestinians to leave is not a feasible solution. The problem needs to be addressed through peaceful negotiations and immediate support for those in need.

[0]: Dumbed down on purpose.

Wrong, Mizrahi are the majority.

> Ashkenazis are from Khazaria

I don't know hope you did it, but wrong again, DNA studies show Ashkenazim have a large Canaanite DNA component. The other part is largely Italian due to admixture within the Roman Empire which forcibly annexed Judea.

even if you decide to trust the religious book, you should know that jewish exile is a G-d's punishment for sins and a gift - so that jewish people can be a light to other nations and build a better world for everyone

That's simply untrue.

https://people.socsci.tau.ac.il/mu/noah/files/2018/07/Ethnic...

Probably not worth reading your comment past this sentence.

You’re confusing something…

They are from Eastern Europe through the way of Germany and probably Italy (where they likely did quite a bit of mixing with the local before becoming mostly genetically isolated) prior to that.

https://www.amazon.com/Invention-Jewish-People-Shlomo-Sand/d...

Genetic studies have found no substantive evidence of a Khazar origin among Ashkenazi Jews.

I need to tell Israeli professor of history Sholomo Sand from Tel-Aviv University that he is a white supremacist antisemite for pushing his Khazarian theory and bringing all the receipts in his book

https://www.amazon.com/Invention-Jewish-People-Shlomo-Sand/d...

Sholomo Sand is not a geneticist nor was his hypothesis based on genetics. The fact that he's a Israeli history professor doesn't mean much here. The man didn't want to be a Jew, religiously or ethnically, and found the most complete way to accomplish it.

Also jewish DNA is closest to northeastern anatolian component that is being suppressed as non politically convenient

Eran's analysis backed up Sand's theory of jewish nation based on DNA

Countries were established and fought for in blood all thorough history, and the winners kept their land. End of story.

Unless we are talking about some remote village, every single country was funded on blood and violence, and after a certain point it just makes no sense to track it.

There must be some principled position where you can argue when it does and or does not make sense. In the case of this conflict, we're talking about a conflict where a few folks that directly experienced it are still alive and that many folks whose parents experienced it are still alive.

The Nakba is more recent than the Holocaust by a few years. Should it get the same treatment? Countries like Germany are still paying reparations.

In the US, we constantly have discussions about the institution of slavery in the US that ended in 1865. Jim Crow laws are more recent injustice however and only ended in 1865.

The Ukraine likewise had the Holodomor. There's actually a fascinating video of Abe Foxman of the ADL speaking with former Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko, telling him that it would be unproductive to talk about "your genocide, our genocide", but at the end of the day that's what we have here and it only seems fair to give comparable treatment for comparable catastrophes.

Speaking of catastrophe, I've always found it somewhat ironic that the word Nakba and the word Shoah (the original vernacular used to describe the Holocaust before it was replaced in the late 60s) both have the same meaning. Nakba is Arabic for catastrophe and Shoah is the Yiddish word for catastrophe.

I'm not saying where that line should or should not be, but it only seems fair that if we're going to draw a line that victims of different but comparable injustices should be given comparable treatment.

However, you are correct in that many historians describe the population was added to, and never replaced. Supporting the DNA links.

From this I would conclude that the Palestinians are indigenous through the pre-colonial link. Most Jews in Israel are not indigenous but they share cultural links and lets not forget the wars they won in 1948 and 1967.

What is bizarre, is the ban on genetic testing for Palestinians and this pseudo-history in Israel that Palestinians never existed. Something distorted is being taught in Israel at many levels.

(Note that I say antisemitic, and not in a manner that involves conflation with Zionism: going against the overwhelming majority of generic evidence to make a claim about a Jewish ethnic group that doesn’t even majority reside in Israel reeks of a blood-and-boden anger against Jews because of who they are.)

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khazar_hypothesis_of_Ashkenazi...

What is still fair to say is that many Jews in Israel do not actually have a continued occupation of that land going back thousands of years as was claimed by the person I was originally responding to.

4% in 1872 is a very low number. Absent the mass immigration that diluted the local population and a Nakba that expulsed many, that 4% population there in 1872 would still be about 4% of the population today give or take a few percentage points assuming the fertility rate of that 4% and the 96% percent that were not Jewish were comparable.

Many of the Jews that are in Israel today are of European descent (i.e. no thousands of years of continued occupation of Palestine) and many of the Jews that are in Israel today that are of Arabic descent are there due to Zionist terrorism from the Irgun, Lehi, and Haganah prior to 1948 and the mass migration from around the Arab-Israeli war. For example, Avi Shlaim from Oxford University has given numerous interviews on the terrorism committed by Zionists in Iraq to coerce the Middle Eastern Jewish populations to concentrate in Palestine as part of the Zionist project.

What is indisputable is that the claim of a continued presence of Israel/Palestine by Jews going back thousands of years really only applies to a very small percent of Jews in Israel. The reality is that that number is most certainly dwarfed by the quantity of Palestinians in Israel/Palestine that can claim to have "lived there for thousands and thousands of years" per the person I was replying to.

Where?

I think blood-and-boden arguments for territory are bad, full stop. Israeli Jews shouldn't use them to justify continuing to displace Palestinian Arabs, and Palestinian Arabs shouldn't use them to justify displacing the millions of Jews who live there now.

To the best of my knowledge, the overwhelming scientific consensus considers Ashkenazi Jews descendants of Levantine ethnic groups, with both Southern European (Roman period) and Northern European (medieval onwards) admixtures. Some people use this to make irredentist arguments, which leads to ridiculous (and antisemitic) responses like the Khazar hypothesis. But the solution is to observe that irredentism is wrong full stop, not to attempt the erasure of Ashkenazi ethnic identity.

Can't think of any particular sources off the top of my head. It shows up from time to time in different places.

> I think blood-and-boden arguments for territory are bad, full stop.

I generally agree. I generally argue for reciprocity and even handedness. If someone else claims a certain argument as legitimate, then it's fair to use that same argument for counterclaims. In this case, the person I was replying to was making the "blood-and-boden argument", which means it is fair to apply that same argument to the counterclaim for those against whom they feel entitled to the same territory.

Me? I have no dog in this fight as my ancestry is so far removed that I can't claim it. My take is that if you go back in your ancestry and you can't point to a single named ancestor in your family tree (unbroken. you have to know everyone between you and that person), then you really can't claim connection to a place as you can't physically place a specific ancestor in a specific community (town, city, village), much less a controlling interest or other form of ownership. I've researched my family tree back to about the 1500s. That's about as far back as 99% of people can claim because written records largely dry up in the 1500s, with the exception of some folks with ties to nobility.

In your opinion, what is a good argument for territory?

> To the best of my knowledge, the overwhelming scientific consensus considers Ashkenazi Jews descendants of Levantine ethnic groups.

A question I have there is how far back to do you have to go to reach that ancestry. Pretty much all Europeans have paternal and maternal haploproups whose origin is in the Middle East. In fact, I would reckon that the only individuals in Europe today that don't claim ancestry to the Middle East would be folks whose ancestors migrated directly from Africa to Europe. Almost everyone else from Europe is going to be able to claim the Middle East. https://vimeo.com/50531435

> But the solution is to observe that irredentism is wrong full stop, not to attempt the erasure of Ashkenazi ethnic identity.

Makes sense. I'm going to incorporate that into my understanding here. Thanks for the corrections.

As a followup, I just did some googling and it looks like Ashkenazi Canaanite ancestry likely originated around 1000 BC.

According to Wikipedia, it looks like the Northern Kingdom of Israel was established around 900 BC and the Kingdom of Judah existed around 850 BC.

Correct me if I'm making a logical error here, but this would suggest that Ashkenazis likely originate from a voluntary diaspora and not a involuntary diaspora (like in 70 AD), if they share genetic ancestry to the region from around or just before the Kingdom of Israel and Judah were established (unless they were expelled by their own. i.e. the equivalent of different denominations and ideological schisms).

That all said, I'm still with you that blood-and-boden arguments are bad, but if folks are going to make that claim it's still worth asking questions about whether that claim is any stronger than the blood-and-boden arguments presented by others.

If I had one, I would be a moderately successful philosopher instead of a moderately successful software engineer :-)

I don't think there's a good "just" definition for control of territory: claims of original or ancestral ownership are hard to verify (and subject to this kind of hell-in-a-cell irredentism), while "working" definitions uniformly favor the most ruthless or powerful party.

Instead of arguing for rightful possession on lines of originality or power, I often think counterfactually: who would, all things being equal, be the ideal stewards of a piece of land? Under that framing the answer is almost always a secular, liberal democracy where national ties are more significant than ethnic or religious ones.

Very few of those exist, and the ones that do are strikingly imperfect.

> A question I have there is how far back to do you have to go to reach that ancestry.

It really depends on what you mean by "reach." As noted above, the Ashkenazim had a significant population bottleneck event, and are genetically distinguishable from other peoples living in Central and Northern Europe. Whether that makes them "closer" to Levantine ancestry or not depends on your perspective: you could argue that they admixed relatively little given their isolation from their original ethnic group, or you could argue that the admixture that occurred was proportionately significant.

> Correct me if I'm making a logical error here, but this would suggest that Ashkenazis likely originate from a voluntary diaspora and not a involuntary diaspora (like in 70 AD), if they share genetic ancestry to the region from around or just before the Kingdom of Israel and Judah were established (unless they were expelled by their own. i.e. the equivalent of different denominations and ideological schisms).

I don't know if it's a logical error or not, but it's an incomplete picture:

* The Jews that became Ashkenazim left the Levant in multiple waves, for multiple reasons (anthropologists will say things like "push and pull factors," which really just means "some were pushed out by hardships, and others were pulled away by opportunities, etc.").

* The likely ancestry of Ashkenazim dates back to ~900-1000BC, but this doesn't itself represent a date range for when they left the Levant. To make it intuitive: there's no distinction between someone living in the Levant in 300 BC with that ancestry and someone living outside the Levant with that same ancestry: they'd look the same in terms of the genetic record.

* Historical records aren't very detailed for the period, but a significant record of Jewish Levant-Europe migration comes from the decades following the Bar Kokhba revolt. Josephus (who is Jewish, but is writing as a Roman citizen) records around 100,000 enslaved on just one occasion among several[1]. These slaves were likely transported further into the empire for labor in both Greece and Italy, which in turn is a likely explanation for the Southern European genetic component within the Ashkenazim.

TL;DR: There's more than one factor that explains the flight of Jews from the Levant. However, our strongest historical record for large scale migration strongly suggests that the bulk of what became the Ashenazim arrived in Southern Europe in the first and second centuries, and then moved further into Central and Northern Europe during the Late Empire and Early Medieval periods. That migration was in turn primarily caused by "push" factors (mass enslavement and murder following the failure of the Bar Kokhba revolt), followed by subsequent "pull" factors (subsequent normalization of Jewish status in the Roman empire, stable lives outside of a post-temple Levant, etc.).

[1]: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/2850/2850-h/2850-h.htm#link6...

Where's the issue ? I thought you Woke people wanted to see more diversity and empowerment of minority groups in the world

I think a change from 96% to 67% in 76 years is a catastrophe for culture indigenous to a region, and it's not a surprise that the Nakba followed such a rapid change without assimilation. The rate should be one where outsiders coming into a society become part of that society instead of splintering the society.

In chemistry terms, it's the difference between a solution, emulsions, suspensions and mixtures. In my mind, the goal should be cultural "solutions". If the rate of change is such that you end up with enclaves that resist mixing, then that leads to decline of trust and civic engagement. You end up with a society that is highly political and fragmented and liable to balkanize and potentially engage in armed civil conflict.

The DEIsraelis are doing a genocide.

Do you see the problem now?

I've been in the US for 29 years now and I'm a US citizen. I'm more American in attitude than most Americans I know.

I consider myself a nationalist. Immigration has been both good and bad for America and both sides in this debate are being super dishonest.

First and foremost, I strongly believe that elected representatives should represent the best interests of their citizens and ONLY their citizens. The best interest of potential future citizens is not something they should even give a thought to.

Some immigration is in the best interest of the citizens of a country. Skimming the top 0.1% or maybe even just the top 0.01% of the best and the brightest abroad absolutely is in the best interests of Americans. That's the question that should be asked when admitting an immigrant: "Is this person a net benefit to the citizens of this country I was elected to represent?"

If the answer to that question is "Yes", then the next question should be "How should we admit this person to come work in the US so that Americans get the benefits and we mitigate any downside from allowing them in?"

Neither of these questions are being asked.

A country is basically a team like Elon said and we are in competition with other teams like Europe, China, India, etc. It is worth building out the best team, but that can't be done in a way where you hurt the citizens you were elected to represent.

Before I continue, one big point about American citizens. They aren't all white as has been misrepresented in this debate. A lot of them are first and second generation non-whites. American-born folks of Indian, Chinese, Hispanic, etc, descent are all American citizens currently being hurt by the H1-B program.

Couple of major issues with the current H1-B program:

First, it absolutely must cost more to bring in an immigrant to do a job than to hire an American. Under no situation should it be allowed to depress wages. If a citizen costs X, it should cost like 1.5x or some value like that to import the talent you need if you genuinely can't find the talent you need domestically.

Second, the visa should belong the the person being brought to the US. A company can sponsor them and maybe get exclusive access for some short period of time like the first year or so, but after that, the person should not have their visa tied to the employer that sponsored them. If they get a good perf review after their first year on the job, they absolutely should get an extension to stay another N years like 3 to 5, but at this point they are totally free to work for any other company with zero risk of losing their visa status if they choose not to continue working for the employer that sponsored them. If that employer wants to keep them, they'll have to pay the premium to keep them and treat them well. No immigrant should ever feel like an indentured servant.

Third, scrutiny should be applied to all companies involved in using the H1-B program as a visa mill and to co-ethnic nepotism.

You absolutely need to make sure that companies aren't "selling" the visas. For example, someone in country X should not be able to pay or perform a favor for a company in the US to get a visa. A genuine need needs to be demonstrated and we need to make sure there is no quid pro quo.

Co-ethnic nepotism is another big one. Executives and managers should not be able to sponsor H1-Bs from their country of origin or from their religious group. If the CEO of a company is from country X and manager of the team is from country Y, then the H1-B visa cannot be filled by someone from either country X or Y. There are 195 countries in the world. Removing the United States, country X and country Y, still leaves 192 other countries from which to find talent.

Lastly, we need to focus on assimilation. I have citizenship from three countries myself and I choose to live in the US because I value US culture (or at least what it was 10 to 15 years ago).

If I wanted to live and work in the other countries in which I could legally work, I'd move to those countries. I don't want that. I want to live and work in the US because I value US culture. If you disproportionately bring in immigrants from particular countries, you turn the US into those other countries for better and for worse. This happens both at the national level and at the local level. I don't want it at either.

In fact, when you disproportionately bring in people from country X into a specific locality, you make it harder for those folks to assimilate. This allows the formation of ethnic/cultural enclaves. This should not happen. You should have a mix of folks from multiple countries in a place so they actually co-mingle and assimilate to become Americans. Not hyphenated Americans, but bonafide Americans that adopt America as the home and the country in which they pride themselves.

Completely disregarding assimilation is going to kill the Golden Goose that Elon Musk values. He can build SpaceX here in American but not in country X or country Y. However, if we culturally turn the US into country X or country Y or just kill the current culture we have now with an indiscriminate immigration policy, then he won't be able to keep building SpaceX in the US in the way he has in the past. He may be able to fix the regulatory hurdles to getting to Mars with DOGE, but he won't be able to fix the culture of the country if we don't prevent the negative aspects of the change in culture. America today is already a much lower trust culture than when I moved here 29 years ago and the continued loss of trust threatens being able to get anything done together as Americans. Coethnic nepotism within a firm, for example, absolutely hurts the ability for that firm to fulfill on its mission as different enclaves within the firm fight with one another for a bigger piece of the pie instead of working together to grow the size of the pie.

America isn't just an idea and it isn't just an economic zone. It is a nation of people and the makeup of those people can evolve over time, but it should remain a nation of people.

Basically, I want to Make American a High Trust Culture Again. This has nothing to do with race or ethnicity. It's culture and it requires assimilation and a common identity.

Our motto is e pluribus unum, not e pluribus pluribus.

you mean you value US salary, right? there is no such thing as “US culture…”

your plan for fixing H1B is SPOT ON but of course it will 1,000,000% never happen as the programs main purpose is labor exploitation and wage depression - nothing else (I am immigrant, former H1B-er and eternally grateful the program existed…)

29 years here and I've lived in four major US cities, one minor suburban US city, one tiny suburban town and my wife and I are planning on retiring to an extremely rural red-blooded American community hours from any major city. There absolutely is American culture. To say it doesn't exist means you either don't see it out of virtue of where you live or you don't see it just like a fish doesn't know it's wet. I've also lived in two wildly different countries from the US. There absolutely is American culture.

I could actually live much much better in one of the other countries for which I have citizenship than in the US.

How long have you lived in the US and where have you lived since moving here?

Since 1992 - in order: - Springfield IL

- Chicago IL

- Fayetteville AR

- St Louis MO

- Washington DC

- Denver CO

- Chicago IL

- Washington DC

what is US culture? parents in retirement homes, kids cannot walk alone by themselves anywhere without someone calling Cops, everyone at home buying shit on amazon and watching netflix, psychiatrists everywhere cause everyone is lonely, 50% of population obese … which part is best part of the culture?!

That's a cancer that is ruining all developed or developing countries. America is just further along.

None of that negates what is still there in much of America that hasn't succumbed to these modern afflictions. I know plenty of folks that live and work near their parents and grandparents and brothers and sisters and see their family often. I know folks who care for their parents without sending them to a home.

> kids cannot walk alone by themselves anywhere without someone calling Cops This is a city problem. In rural and somewhat suburban places, kids still live like this. In cities in Latin America and Europe kids don't go out walking by themselves either. This isn't an American issue. This is a rural/suburban vs urban thing.

That said, this problem is worst in places with less social trust and social trust is lowest in places without common culture.

> everyone at home buying shit on amazon and watching netflix

So much of this is because of the erosion of disposable income as cost of living has increased and wages have not kept up. No country in the world has had as strong a hobby/extracurricular activity culture like America has. In my younger years in America I knew tons of folks with tons of hobbies that simply weren't even options in other countries. You had magazines for every imaginable hobby. You had specialist mail order catalogs for everything. When I go visit friends in Latin America, some of them with hobbies ask me for help buying and bringing stuff that they can't buy domestically.

There's tons of nature and outdoor culture in America. Much more than other countries. We have amazing national forests and national parks. You have hiking, hunting, camping, rafting, kayaking, powerboating, sailing, etc.

The only hobby I partake in where the locus of the hobby isn't America is sailing. For everything else, most of the communities and manufacturers that make anything decent are all American.

Take something like the X-Games. Pretty much every one of those sports is primarily American in origin.

Besides that, you have things like American barbecues, tailgating at sporting events, roadtripping, Thanksgiving feasts, Fourth of July celebrations, Memorial Day and Labor Day festivities.

There's so much really. It just isn't apparent if you've only ever experienced life in major cities.

I feel like I've had a front row seat witnessing the decline of something amazing, but had the good fortune of experiencing many of the things that make America a great place to live. November 8th this year was a referendum rejecting many of the forces contributing to that decline and an attempt to reverse it.

> psychiatrists everywhere cause everyone is lonely

This is largely a liberal problem. Seriously go look at graphs of mental health diagnoses over time by political affiliation. Amongst those that identify as conservative or very conservative, you don't see the same mental health issues. A lot of the mental health issues are very different by gender. It's mostly an issue for women and it largely started in the seventies. Why that decline in happiness occurred for women, I will leave as an exercise for you to speculate on.

> 50% of population obese Happening in every country. America is just in the lead. There's nothing particularly American about this problem. Both the other countries from which I am a citizen are well on there way to the same obesity problems. I have my thoughts on why this has happened here and is happening in other countries too, but it's off topic.

Culturally, America up until about 30 years ago was much higher trust when it was much more European culturally. Stuff that we didn't have nearly as much of when I first arrived were things like jeitinho (Brazil), combina/protekzia (Israel), wasta (Middle East), guanxi (China), viveza criolla (Hispanic Latin American countries), blat (former Soviet bloc), etc. With immigration without assimilation and the formation of co-ethnic enclaves both in geographic communities and within companies, the US now has far far more nepotism and much lower trust today when I first arrived 30 years ago.

Honestly, this isn't even the first time the US has experienced issues and reversed course if you know your US history. A lot of these issues would be familiar to someone familiar with US history in the late 1800s to early 1900s. In 1924, Calvin Coolidge signed the Johnson-Reed Immigration Act, which put an end to the mass immigration happening at the time and that gave those immigrants that were in America already at the time to form a new American identity going into WWII and in the post-war period. It's basically a process of simulated annealing.

This was reversed when LBJ signed the Hart-Cellar Immigration Act into law.

Immigration is neither an unassailable good nor is it an irredeemable evil. There are good ways and bad ways to do it. New blood and vitality has been amazing for America, but too much change too quickly without time healthy mixing to happen comes with it its own problems. Right now we need to course correct and go back to forming a single American identity with high trust irrespective of ethnicity, national origin, race or religion, and all nepotism in all forms (again ethnic, national origin, race or religion) needs to be condemned and rooted out.

- yea america sucks but so does everyone else (false)

- yea america is obese but so is everyone else (false)

- being lonely is a function of your political affiliation (this was absolutely amazing to see - wow)

- things are great cause I have few friends who barbeque

- kids cannot walk alone because of urban vs. rural (wild wild wild stuff, one of the most urban places on the planet - Tokio Japan - has kids riding metro by themselves, you should look it up. this summer in belgrade I did not know where my 11-year old daughter was 80% of the day… this is america’s sickness, not rural vs urban

Geez …

I don't understand how you can get "America sucks" from from my comments. I love this place. All the stuff you said sucks are things that suck in lots of other countries too. Why am I going to get upset about phenomena that's happening everywhere? The things I like about America are those things that are unique to America.

> being lonely is a function of your political affiliation (this was absolutely amazing to see - wow)

I was pointing out correlation. I didn't imply causation. You're reading causation into what I wrote. Loneliness or just general unhappiness is far less prevalent amongst those that lean conservative and very conservative. It's probably something worth investigating to figure out why this correlation exists.

> Tokio Japan - has kids riding metro by themselves, you should look it up.

Glad you brought this up. It was something I was thinking about when I wrote my comment. Japan has exactly that which the US has lost a LOT of in the past 30+ years. It's a highly cohesive, high trust culture.

You should go and look up the research of Robert Putnam, who has done the largest, most comprehensive longitudinal studies of the decline of civic engagement.

If you're so unhappy in the US, why are you here? Why not move back to wherever you're happier that has culture when you think the US has no culture? Reading between the lines, it sounds like you haven't made an effort to assimilate into the culture and that has colored your experience and negative view of America.

I'm not going to disagree that America is sick, but it has the potential to get healthy again and that starts with changes that prioritize increasing the quality of life for those already here, whether they were born here or became naturalized citizens. And the prioritization of finding commonality between those that are Americans by birth or chose to become America because they believe in its potential as a nation.

my wife likes money. she said 2 more years and then we are out to retire. I have been begging my wife to move for the last 11 years since my kid has been born as I consider the worst thing I ever did as a father was to subject her childhood to this environment. she is old enough now and has traveled all over the world that now she is doing more begging than I am. america is perfect place to make a boatload of money if you put in hard hard work but all else is really bad and we make excuses because money is sooooo great

What was your favorite city out of all those and what was your least favorite?

Are you and your wife from the same country? Did you meet in the US or came here together?

I digress; there is no culture except maybe the idiotic focus on sports (watching that is; everyone still obese!), although that's no different in AUS and for a large extent the UK, so actually, nope.

Disclaimer; lived and worked in the US; left the first time trump got the presidency.

what things are you interested in that are cultural?

> as hard times coming

This wouldn't surprise me, but unless it happens in 2nd to 4th year of his presidency, it's almost certainly going to be the bipartisan drunken sailor spending of Congress since the pandemic our country likely had a hand in causing.

Between accelerating national debt and our disastrous Ukraine war banking policies and international asset seizures that have undermined dollar supremacy, I'm expecting hard times unless we get a Milei-style intervention to course correct.

> Disclaimer; lived and worked in the US; left the first time trump got the presidency.

Hope that's working out for you. It's working out here for me.

Well, that is all that matters. We both will be dead soon anyway, so picking where to sit it out is important.

Washington DC - by far. I have been everywhere in the US as well except for Alaska, for business and pleasure. Washington DC is the only place that has some form of a soul :)

Are you and your wife from the same country? Did you meet in the US or came here together?

I am from Serbia, my wife is from Croatia. We met in Washington DC. We came under different circumstances, I came to play basketball and my wife came as a refugee.

I've always been curious about Washington DC. I've visited twice. Seems like it attracts a lot of the best people from all over the globe but the worst people from within the United States.

One of my biggest wishes for the US is to decentralize pretty much all the functions that Washington DC does today. In its current form, it doesn't exist to further the best interests of the United States. It only functions to further the best interest of itself. Classic case of the Shirky Principle applied to a city.

Curious to hear more about the soul you're talking about? My guess is it has more to do with the foreign presence in that city than the domestic presence.

I think this is disingenuous. You also heavily implied that feminism is at the root of many women's issues. You can't then pull it back and say "Oh, I didn't mean that, you just assumed that". So what -did- you mean?

You also blatantly ignore that conservative and very conservative community have a stigma against mental health issues. While someone "investigates" this, they should probably also investigate whether it is actually the case or whether conservatives with mental health issues are more likely to leave them untreated or deny their existence.

One of my biggest observations in life is that many discussions that seem dichotomous are not. Most everything exists on a spectrum.

One of the biggest one is pro-choice vs pro-life. My experience has been that there is a very very very tiny minority that is absolutely pro-life and an even tinier minority that is pro-choice. The vast majority are in the it depends on time and gestation. If you ask the right questions of someone, you find out that they are pro-choice but feel that abortion in the 8th month is wrong. Likewise, when you ask the right questions, may pro-life people are okay with abortion like the morning after pill to like up to a month or two. What I've learned is that we've been conditioned to think we all fall into one camp or another, but the truth is most are in the same camp but just disagree on when is okay within that very wide 9-month span.

Likewise, the same goes for the debate about immigration. There's this push to force everyone to fall into the camp of 100% for immigration no matter what or no immigration whatsoever.

The truth is that most folks are actually simultaneously pro-immigration and anti-immigration. Almost everyone feels like there is some common culture. You need to have it if you want any semblance of cooperation, but even the most ardent anti-immigration person agrees that there are folks work bringing into the tribe.

There is no magic dirt. Demographics are destiny and you really can't reverse the damage from an immigration policy that makes no attempt to discern between folks you should and should not allow in. It's possible to take a cautious approach and increase it later if proven to be too conservative. The reverse however is very very messy.

If you haven't seen it yet, you should check out Sam Hyde's ~45 minute video message to Elon Musk. Absolutely amazing summary of the state of things.

The morning after pill is not an abortifacient. While there are different types most (like Levonorgestrel) are antiovulatarory or anti fertilisation.

Marriage saved.

It’d cause too much conflict otherwise!