Mo Hosseini describes himself as a Palestinian American who is tired of stupid people. I hadn’t heard of him, but one of my sons sent me “50 Completely True Things” he had published in Medium. The 50 Things addressed the war in Gaza, and the list was so good–so compelling–it practically demanded widespread sharing.
Both my son and I were particularly partial to #39, but the entire list, with the possible exception of #50, was dead-on accurate–cutting through the bias and handwringing and pomposity that has dominated the punditry.
So–with attribution and gratitude (and apologies to anyone offended by some of the language) I’m sharing all 50.
FACT No. 1.
Some Jews are shitty and awful people.
FACT No. 2.
Some Muslims are shitty and awful people.
FACT No. 3.
Some Christians are shitty and awful people.
FACT No. 4.
Some Arabs are shitty and awful people.
FACT No. 5.
Some Americans are shitty and awful people.
FACT No. 6.
Some Israelis are shitty and awful people.
FACT No. 7.
Some Palestinians are shitty and awful people.
FACT No. 8.
Not all Jews are Israelis.
FACT No. 9.
Not all Israelis are Jews.
FACT No. 10.
Not all Jews are white.
FACT No. 11.
Not all Israelis are white.
FACT No. 12.
Not all Muslims are Arabs.
FACT No. 13.
Not all Arabs are Muslim.
FACT No. 14.
Not all Palestinians are Muslim.
FACT No. 15.
Not all Arabs are Palestinian.
FACT No. 16.
Not all Palestinians are Hamas.
FACT No. 17.
Texans are not Arizonans.
FACT No. 18.
Germans are not Dutch.
FACT No. 19.
Palestinians are not Jordanians.
FACT No. 20.
Egyptians are not Palestinians.
FACT No. 21.
Where you are born does not actually determine anything about you.
FACT No. 22.
Your passport is not your political beliefs.
FACT No. 23.
Your government is not your morality.
FACT No. 24.
Not all Jews like the Israeli government.
FACT No. 25.
Not all Israelis like the Israeli government.
FACT No. 26.
Not all Palestinians like the Palestinian government.
FACT No. 27.
Israeli governments have committed acts of terror and violence against the Palestinian people.
FACT No. 28.
Palestinian organizations have committed acts of terror and violence against the Israeli people.
FACT No. 29.
US leaders do things that I do not agree with (e.g., 2016–2020)
FACT No. 30.
Israeli leaders do things that Israelis do not agree with.
FACT No. 31.
Palestinian leaders do things that Palestinians do not agree with.
FACT No. 32.
What happened to the Israeli civilians on 10/7 is fucking awful, and Hamas has earned every fucking thing that the Israeli military throws at them.
FACT No. 33.
What is happening in Gaza to civilians is fucking awful, and not the smartest thing for Israel to do, and some aspects of Israeli military activity may be war crimes, and it doesn’t have to be genocide for it to be tragic.
FACT No. 34.
You can advocate for Palestine without being a racist, antisemitic piece of shit.
FACT No. 35.
You can advocate for Israel without being a racist, anti-Arab piece of shit.
FACT No. 36.
People like to have sex with each other, and they sometimes procreate with people outside their tribes.
FACT No. 37.
No one in the Levant is indigenous. Every fucking empire in history has fucked their way through the Levant. There is no pure indigeneity. And let’s be honest: the entire planet has been colonized by hominids from the Great Rift Valley.
FACT No. 38.
Palestinians and Israelis share paternal Bronze-Age DNA. Yes, even Ashkenazi Jews.
FACT No. 39.
Stop with the fucking history lessons about what the Israelites did, or what the Ottomans did, or what the British did, or whatever. IT IS FUCKING IMMATERIAL. There is a pile of dog shit in the living room. Instead of arguing about whose dog took the bigger shit in the living room, maybe focus on how we clean up the dog shit, and maybe we keep the dogs outside.
FACT No. 40.
Any people have a right to group together and self-identify as whatever-the-fuck-they-want-to-self-identify as. When they get large enough as a group, those people have the right to self-determination and self-respect and a state where they can control their own destinies.
FACT No. 41.
Whether you like the idea or not, the Israeli state exists. It will also continue to exist until the ISRAELI people decide they don’t want it to exist. Your opinion on this matter (if you are not Israeli) is fucking immaterial.
FACT No. 42.
Whether you like the idea or not, a Palestinian state will exist at some point, and it will continue to exist until the PALESTINIAN people decide they don’t want it to exist. Your opinion on this matter (if you are not Palestinian) is fucking immaterial.
FACT No. 43.
You cannot bomb a people into true submission — the Blitz did not ‘soften’ British morale.
FACT No. 44.
You cannot fight a war and kill a people’s desire for safety, freedom, and self-determination. You can stifle it. You can try to ignore it, but one way or another, you will have to deal with it. This is as true for my Israeli friends as it is for my Palestinian ones.
FACT No. 45.
The solution to the Middle East conflict will not be found on Threads, or TikTok, or in the streets of any city that isn’t within a 2-hour car ride from downtown Jerusalem.
FACT No. 46.
If you want to be an ally to Palestinians, please feel free to continue to advocate for peace, security, and self-determination, but do it without dehumanizing or stereotyping Israelis and Jews.
FACT No. 47.
If you want to be an ally to Israelis, please feel free to continue to advocate for peace, security, and self-determination, but do it without dehumanizing or stereotyping Palestinians and Muslims, and Arabs.
FACT No. 48.
If you just want to advocate for peace, try to be a voice for reason, and don’t inflame or over-simplify an already chaotic, complicated, and deeply emotional issue. Help people find common ground and help bring the temperature down. You can be moral and stand up for what you believe in without being an asshole.
FACT No. 49.
Yes, an amazing one-state liberal democracy where Palestinian boys & girls could fuck Israeli boys & girls & make cute babies, & everybody spoke Hebrew & Arabic & we all agreed that hummus and falafel are delicious and Palestinian and sufganiyot are delicious and Israeli would be awesome. But this wonderful future has about as much chance of happening in the near term as this 5’8″ 53-year-old Palestinian has being a starter for the Golden State Warriors. A two-state solution is the only workable one.
FACT No. 50.
Hummus is Palestinian. I am immovable on this.
Don’t fucking @ me
Excellent list. A voice of reason that I think even Todd couldn’t argue with. And I’m with you on #50.
The points made in this quoted piece are realistic, destructive of artificiality, and a.good base for policy making, but I think the distracting language employed, which adds nothing to its substance, is in need of editing.
Absolutely. Sometimes it has to be plainly spelled out.
I am not Jewish, however I both support and sympathize with Israel. Again, however, I am appalled at the Israeli government – as I am often appalled with the United States’ government. We humans are a single species – mammals more alike than different, race, ethnicity, culture, and beliefs are basically irrelevant.
How to clean up the poop in the living room and how to control the dogs that did it, is the million dollar question.
This summarizes it for me:
FACT No. 48.
If you just want to advocate for peace, try to be a voice for reason, and don’t inflame or over-simplify an already chaotic, complicated, and deeply emotional issue. Help people find common ground and help bring the temperature down. You can be moral and stand up for what you believe in without being an asshole.
Jewish, Muslim, Christian religions all claim righteous dogma. And “love your neighbor as yourself” is in every one of the religious holy books they all read.
And yet, the religious believers do not follow this written dogma, but do just the opposite for the most part. The term ‘Hypocrisy’ is derived from theater and costume, false face, and deception, being something other than yourself. In other words, in a religious worship context, “claiming a form of godly devotion but proving false to its power.” A hijacked form of Kabuki theater used to Roial The morally ignorant and conscience ignoring entitled wannabes, that want to be something that they can’t ever be. But they will enjoy being lied to, because that’s the only way they feel part of something. Many probably even know they’re being deceived by their chosen beliefs, but they willfully and dutifully allow it, continuing to deceive themselves knowingly. Kind of insane when you think about it, but it really goes along with the 50 things in the thread today.
This has been humanities long trek into Oblivion. You really can’t put this genie back in the bottle.
Pure common sense which will be ignored by those looking for excuses to disagree, divide, and stoke violence and by those who pander to them. The rest of us should, as Sheila had done, spread the word.
I think this is a good example of the appropriate use of profanity to emphasize the importance of the message and the intensity of the emotion of the author. Nobody is damaged by reading four letter words.
Comedy may save us, by first we have to learn to laugh at ourselves. Great post and great list. If you’re offended by the language that’s too bad. In my dotage, I try not to use them. However, the words he used are so common in the vernacular that they have lost a lot of their punch. It isn’t new and some books that use them liberally are considered classics, for example “Ulysses” by James Joyce.
This list is a sort of guide for anti-tribalism. My #51 would be: Almost all Texas Republicans have no clue about anything to do with government at any level.
Great list! Yes, add #51.
Language reveals our culture. We are steadily losing dignity, caring, thinking…all replaced by “acting out”. It’s not “cute” – it is rude and crude; but that is the world today. IGIO
The list is universal by changing the names of the people, places, and tribes.
For diverse humans to survive, we must live with the “people’s desire for safety, freedom, and self-determination.”
There is only one way to do that:
“If you just want to advocate for peace, try to be a voice for a reason, and don’t inflame or over-simplify an already chaotic, complicated, and deeply emotional issue. Help people find common ground and help bring the temperature down. You can be moral and stand up for what you believe in without being an asshole.“
In other words work on yourself to be the voice of reason rather than changing “others” with bombs, bullets, and bombastic insults.
Thank you, Sheila. What a great effing list.
As indicated by the comments above, open-minded liberals appreciate the list provided about tribes. Closed-minded right-wingers would never read the list to begin with and that’s part of the problem.
As for the facts above, I would have added how our government reaches the decisions they do, and how Israel influences those decisions. Like the 12 Republicans who threatened the ICC jurist and his family if he issues arrest warrants for Israeli leadership. The US is once again on the wrong side of history because they have sold out to foreign influence.
Every once in awhile I will respond on X to a post by right-wing pundits just to see what kind of response I get. Yesterday’s response was to Katie Pavlich’s bigoted post. I pointed out the bigotry against student protesters, and received quite the response this morning. Most were ad hominem attacks directed at me.
Also, I have no idea where these people get their information, but it’s all conspiratorial. The US students can’t be protesting genocide or the slaughter of Palestinians because they have a conscience. There must be “nefarious sources” behind the campus protests. This also goes for nearly all the Republican politicians, with few exceptions. Many Democrats too. They are going to pin the protests on another boogeyman like China, Russia, or Iran. Just watch!
Virtue postering replaced by vulgarity postering. IGIO
Lester – What does IGIO stand for?
Excellent list, and I also like #51.
Cleaning up the poop would be tantamount to cleaning up the bloated egos.
“We are but one,”
“I honor the place in you that is the same in me.
I honor the place in you where the whole universe resides.
I honor the place in you of love, of life of peace and of truth.
I honor the place in you that is the same in me.
There is but one.
NAMASTE
Linda – I’m Glad I’m Old
On cue this morning, here is a list of right-wing media available for those interested:
-Fox News
-Daily Wire
-Newsmax
-The Post Millennial
-PragerU
-Breitbart
-Washington Free Beacon
-Rebel News
-Epoch Times
-Babylon Bee
-New York Post
-National Review
-WorldNetDaily
-Washington Times
-Washington Examiner
-One America News
-Real America’s Voice
-Christian Broadcasting Network
-The Blaze
-Daily Mail
-The Free Press
-The Federalist
-Gateway Pundit
-Salem Radio Network
-Right Side Broadcasting Network
-Western Journal
-Human Events
-RedState
-PJ Media
-Hot Air
-Twitchy
-Townhall
-Drudge Report
-Daily Caller
I have to agree with Lester on the vulgarity replacing virtue.
Vulgarity;
Synonyms: grossness, crudeness, tastelessness, indelicacy, classless!
Virtuous; conforming to moral and ethical principles; morally excellent; upright, class or classy!
When someone can’t open their mouth without dropping the f-bomb, that absolutely proves without a doubt, the emotionally and intellectually stunted condition society can’t seem to eschew.
Yes, I saw this a couple of days ago and posted it on FaceBook, where I discovered it. Laurie Gray, I’m with you on # 48. And thank you, Sheila, for bringing attention to it.
Thanks, with a smile.
Todd -thought their was one in Boston…no?
Great list, but as noted, it could still be great without the vulgarity. It’s a thing, these days, I guess. Todd, thanks for your media list. And: what Vernon said.
There are plenty of people who oppose both vulgarity and virtue.
The message is what matters.
Boston is very left leaning. Just a few AM radio stations, Lester.
Todd – Boston Herald?
Sheila – Love the post!
Vulgarity is relevant to the times. There was a time when the exclamation “Swell!” was considered vulgar.
Lighten up, people!!
Kathy M
No doubt that massive speeding, reckless driving and running red lights are “relevant to the times” as we are in the times of “everyone is above the law – especially ME”.
Lester — say what???????
No one ever died from saying the word “fuck”!
And “dirty words” aren’t against the law anymore, I don’t think.
What is your point? Do you have one that makes sense?????????
For the record, I like Strawberries.
That’s paraphrasing the response of student radical, and later author and journalist James Simon Kunen, when advised a member of the Columbia University said, again paraphrasing the dean, students’ opinions on issues meant as much to him as their opinions on whether they liked strawberries.
I’ve been giving that a lot of thought these past few weeks, as students and faculty members and others have protested the actions and inactions of the US government in the Israeli Hamas conflict. The gravemen of the statement has always been, to me, that students have the right to voice their opinions, and sometimes that will be uncomfortable for many. As will protest villages. But university administrators and police shouln’t have the right to squash the strawberries just to please political “leaders” who don’t care about those strawberries.
As in the 60s and 7 0s, students and other protestors are at the forefront of voicing the opinions of many, because they have the time in their lives to do what many of us don’t.
The list is timeless, but I think the vulgarity could be removed, and it would be all the more timeless. Swell was slang, not vulgar. In my short life time (60-some years) Fuck has always been vulgar, and with all deference to George Carlin, not acceptable in most segments of English speaking populations (though the Irish in Newfoundland, at least, seem very fond of the term, but I think for its shock value).
This list captures, succintly, all the problems with the proposed Indiana legislation on antisemitism, and the problem with most of the new laws and social guidelines on anti-semitism. Attacking the policies of the State of Israel and its government, and its supporters such as the US, is not the same as attacking the Jewish religion. They are not the same. Evil and Good lurk in the hearts of people on both sides. Both groups need a national home. THat should be the goal, not the Israeli annexation of Gaza or the West Bank. The US needs to get on the wagon to deliver that solution.