Tomas, you really do great research, wonderful thinking and fantastic synthesis on every topic - except that of Israel.
You have in recent months highlighted the reasons that Palestinians are to be blame entirely for the conflict. Your reason? That Palestinians don't want peace. That is the only reason?
A March 2025 poll conducted by Pennsylvania State University and published in Haaretz found that 82% of Israeli Jews support the "transfer" or forced expulsion of Palestinians from the Gaza Strip.
The Penn State study also found that 47% of Jewish Israelis agreed that the IDF, when conquering an enemy city, should "act as the Israelites did in Jericho... killing all its inhabitants".
Israeli Heritage Minister Amichai Eliyahu said on Sunday that dropping an “nuclear bomb” on the Gaza Strip is “an option”. The Institute of Strategic Dialogue found that between 7 October 2023 and 7 October 2024, there were more than 513,000 English-language posts by 261,000 unique authors with ‘no innocent Palestinians’ rhetoric. The president and defence minister said they were human animals. And therefore, killing new born babies and children is fine.
Israelis were horrified by the rape and killing of Palestinian prisoners at the notorious Sde Teiman detention facility. Not because the solidiers who perpetrated these crimes should be put on trial, but that this should be considered normal and standard practice with Palestinian prisoners, and that they should be released. Which they were. Between 84 and 98 Palestinian detainees have died in Israeli jails since October 7, 2023, according to the United Nations.
In effect you are blaming the victim Tomas. Brown University estimates $21.7 billion of military aid has been provided to Israel since October 7 2023, and neither Republicans nor Democrats have put any limits on Israeli activity. Since the so-called peace plan came into effect, Israel controls more than 53% of the Gaza.
'Oh but Hamas' you say. There is no Hamas in the West Bank, and yet the same thing is happening there. Israel plans to annex 82% of the occupied West Bank to prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state, far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said in September. “Israeli sovereignty will be applied to 82% of the territory,” Smotrich, the leader of the far-right Religious Zionism Party, told a press conference in Jerusalem. It already controls more than 70% through settlements and walls.
Bibi Netanyahu went to the UN showing a map of Israel with no Palestine. This is part of the Greater Israel project which is thinking of taking much of Lebanon, Syria and Egypt, and has already made significant inroads in that plan, with land grabs up to the Litani River in Lebanon and close to Damascus in Syria.
And this is all nothing new. One of the fathers of modern Israel, Menachim Begin, was called a terrorist by the British, and was even reported to have proudly started a speech by proudly saying he was a terrorist. In the formation of Israel, over 700,000 Palestinians were expelled from their homes. They were not compensated, there was no deal, they were driven out at gunpoint. Many of those driven out had given refuge to Jewish refugees, just as they had done to Armenian refugees before that, and just as many in Europe had to Ukrainians.
Imagine having given refuge to a Ukrainian, and then have them lock your doors and told to leave or you will be shot. That is exactly what happened to many of those Palestinians.
Tomas, you are an intelligent and well-meaning individual. You have also been fed a steady diet of Zionest propaganda, as have most people reading western media. It is time that you at least allow the possibility than not everything you have read is the complete truth, and start to do your own research into this complex subject.
Everything I have referenced is based on reported research or stories. Most of it from Israeli media, which has a much more rigorous debate on these topics than in the US or UK. I would suggest you start there.
Yes, when one side doesn't want peace, you can't have peace. Since I first noticed this issue in 2008, I have not seen this change.
The key difference between that and the numbers you quote is that these are *after October 7th 2023*. If you look at all the data from before, you'll see these were not widespread beliefs for Israelis.
More importantly, if today you ask Israelis: "Would you support a solution where magically all Palestinians wanted to cohabit with Israelis, they would never try to kill Israelis or invade Israel, and they got Gaza and the West Bank as their state as a result?" I'm pretty convinced a big majority would say "Yes." It's the crucial asymmetry: Israelis do want peace and cohabitation, but after 100 y of conflict they're highly skeptical they can get it. Palestinians do NOT want peace and cohabitation.
I have written about how I disagree with the Israeli policy in the West Bank. The settlements are a very long-term strategy to gain negotiation power through facts on the ground, and the military law that rules there is morally unacceptable. The fact that settlers are given free reign to use violence against Palestinians is terrible. To complete the picture, however:
- Palestinians don't have any good leader, and that's not a coincidence, but a result of the culture
- Palestinians are considered a monolithic culture in the WB, but they're not. Clans are much stronger there than the idea outside suggests.
- The opinion of the people in WB is as radical as in Gaza
- You'd imagine, after 100y, that Palestinians would have tried another approach than violence. I believe if they seriously tried, they would get what they want. But they haven't, in the West Bank either.
So it's not black and white either.
I don't believe for a second in the "Greater Israel" narrative, and I don't think 90% of Israelis do either.
I have been fed Zionist Propaganda, and also Palestinian Propaganda, and everything in between. I've written 10 articles on the topic, and all my reasoning is public. You can point at any part you want to tell me what I'm saying that's wrong.
Most noticeably, you're not addressing my fundamental claim: You can't have peace unless both sides want peace, and Palestinians have never wanted peace.
Hi Tomas, thank you for your reply. Isn't it wonderful that that we can discuss this issue without reverting to ad hominem attacks, as seems to be the norm when discussing this topic! I appreciate you respecting my comment enough to answer, I acknowledge that you have researched your point of view and that you have thought through it.
Your suggestion that the views we see in Israel today are all after the terrible events we saw on *October 7th 2023* I think reflects the biased way in which the history of the region is seen in the west. Why do I say that? A cursory glance at Wikipedia lists 14 massacres that were carried out by Israelis of Palestinians in 1948. It lists a further 12 from 1953 to 2021, not including the period of 1956 to 1982 which is incomplete, but during which we know that the Sabra and Shatila massacre happened in Beruit, of both Palestinian refugees and Shia Lebanese, and which was estimated to have led to between 1,300 and 3,500 deaths. One massacre alone out of at least 27 documented cases that was already a more heinous crime than the one that you believe fundamentally changed Israeli opinion.
Now let us do something that we don't normally do in the west, and put ourselves in the shoes of Palestinians. Are they also allowed to have emotions? Are they allowed to want freedom? Are they allowed to grieve their dead? Are they not allowed to resist what bodies such as the United Nations, the International Criminal Court and the International Court of Justice, as well as genocide scholars, have described variously as illegal occupation, apartheid and genocide?
The de-humanisation of Palestinians I would argue is not an accident. The Lancet, Oxford Academic and a number of other bodies have reported the way in which western media reports on Israelis and Palestinians differently, for example Israelis being 'killed' or 'slaughtered' by Hamas, using words like 'barbaric', 'massacre', and 'atrocity', while Palestinians 'die' or are 'found dead', their suffering presented in clinical naturalistic language, as if it was through due to a weather event.
And is it really fair to say that there is only one partner for peace? Bibi Netanyahu has never actually wanted peace. A team led by Bibi and Richard Perle made their plan clear in 1996 when they wrote 'A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm', which argued for ... all the wars that the west has fought in the Middle East. Have you seen the yellow (or golden) noose-shaped lapel pin that members of the cabinet are wearing? How they openly call for prisoners to be killed? They are the members of a party that murdered. Yitzak Rabin, the last Prime Minister of Israel with an actual interest in peace. The current Israeli government includes what we used to think of as terrorists, and yet now we think of them as a credible partner for peace?
And in the spirit of empathy and caring for those less fortunate than us at this time of year, let us remember the Christians, Jews and Muslims who have the misfortunate to be Gazans, many of whom are refugees for the second, third or forth time, and who are currently experiencing this during the 'ceasefire':
The images and testimonies emerging from Gaza this winter are tragic and unbearable. A 2-week‑old infant, Mohammed Khalil, was found “cold as ice” in a tent flooded by days of heavy rain. A 29‑day‑old premature baby, Saeed Abdeen, died from hypothermia despite desperate attempts by his family to keep him warm in their falling-apart nylon tent. Families waking each morning to water flooding their bedding from underneath, unable to dry anything in the relentless damp.
This is not simply the consequence of a harsh winter and the elements. These are the predictable and preventable outcomes of a suffocating siege and systematic obstruction of aid that have stripped more than two million Palestinians of the minimum conditions required for human survival. Storm Byron may have brought the rain and freezing temperatures, but Israeli policy is what is killing children.
Over recent days, at least 16 deaths have been reported amid heavy rains and plunging temperatures. Waterlogged buildings collapsed on families who had no safer shelter, and three children were killed as the storm raged over displacement camps and makeshift tents atop rubble. More than 79,000 people are crowded into over 100 UNRWA schools turned into shelters, each one more damaged than the other, overrun with overflowing sewage from the rainfall. Humanitarian teams are attempting to address the issues on the ground in real time, but the most basic supplies needed, like timber, plywood, warm clothes, and proper tents, continue to sit idly at crossings as they are blocked by Israeli authorities.
The deadly cold fell on a population already debilitated by more than two years of relentless and indiscriminate bombardment, multiple forced displacements, and the collapse of Gaza’s healthcare system. Since the so-called “ceasefire” began on Oct. 10, we have repeatedly heard the international community call for a “scaling up of aid.” But the reality on the ground shows that the agreed-upon 600 trucks of humanitarian aid per day (outlined in President Donald Trump’s proposal) has yet to materialize. Instead, the average has been a fraction of that, around 244 trucks a day, according to Palestinian authorities.
Children are dying for lack of what any parent would call the bare necessities: blankets, tents, shoes, soap. More than 27,000 tents have been flooded, blown away, or ripped apart. Some 13,000 families are once again out on the street. OCHA estimates 795,000 people are in immediate danger amidst the freezing rain and plunging temperatures. And because construction materials are still restricted by Israel as so‑called “dual‑use” items, families have no way to reinforce their shelters. Even sandbags and water pumps sit blocked at the border.
Israel’s restrictions have also forced the closure of child‑friendly spaces and psychosocial centers. Save the Children shut down four of its sites due to flooding and sewage intrusion. And even if the children had access to these spaces of reprieve, they still lacked the shoes, coats, or safety to be able to trek through the sludge and mud that enveloped the camp’s dirt roads.
The cruelty of these conditions is tragically unthinkable. Families huddle around their infants at night. Mothers and fathers lie awake, checking whether their children are still breathing. The small bodies of infants are unable to generate enough heat to regulate their temperatures and not enough meat on their bones to insulate them further from the bitter cold. Healthy and full-term newborn babies are susceptible to complications caused by hypothermia, but in Gaza, many newborns are born prematurely with low birth weight and to mothers having difficulty nursing, confined to an ever-shrinking Gaza with no electricity, no sanitation, and no materials to rebuild. Respiratory infections are surging. Waterborne diseases are rising. If a Palestinian newborn or infant miraculously survives the cold night, they are still fighting for their life amidst communicable diseases and a lack of access to proper healthcare. Even the most vigilant parents who identify early signs of distress in their babies will find no ambulance or car to be able to navigate the streets during the flooding, and hospitals without warmers or supplies to revive them.
Despite the US brokered ceasefire, Israel has continued attacks that have killed hundreds of Palestinians and injured more than 1,000 since the agreement began. Homes are still being destroyed. Aid requests are still being rejected. Doctors are still being denied entry, including myself. Source: https://zeteo.com/p/babies-are-freezing-to-death-in-gaza.
Happy holidays to all in the Uncharted Territories community, and I hope we can continue to have these vital debates in 2026.
And now HERE is a geopolitical question that we could use your expert analysis on Tomas. In this video, Prof Jiang speculates that the real reason China, Russia and presumably the Gulf states have essentially done nothing to end the genocide in Gaza and support the 'Peace' Plan: the revival of the Ben Gurion Canal idea: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-W_Iz6eNCW0.
I know nothing about this other than cursory reading, which suggests that when you skirt the Gaza strip the cost becomes prohibitive, whereas cut right through the strip and voila! Economically viable, better for oil / international trade. Capital wins! Just need those pesky Palestinians out of the way.
This chimes with a historical analysis with why the British supported the state of Israel: the strategic need to secure the Suez Canal. This from Google Search AI overview:
British support for the establishment of a Jewish homeland was indeed driven by the strategic need to secure the Suez Canal, which was considered Britain's "imperial lifeline" for trade and communication with India.
Strategic Motivations (1917–1948)
Buffer Zone: British leaders hoped that a pro-British Jewish population in Palestine would act as a strategic buffer to protect the Suez Canal in neighboring Egypt.
Military Communication: Control over Palestine provided a foothold in the Eastern Mediterranean and a reserve military base near Egypt, ensuring vital communication routes to British colonies remained secure.
Pre-empting Rivals: Establishing a presence in Palestine was also intended to block other powers, such as France, from controlling areas too close to Britain's Egyptian interests.
It suggests the US strategic approach was more complex:
American Motivations (Shift to Post-1960s):
Anti-Colonialism: During the 1956 Suez Crisis, President Eisenhower forced Britain and Israel to withdraw to avoid appearing as a "colonial power" in an era of decolonization.
Cold War Containment: The U.S. initially sought "even-handedness" to prevent Arab nations from turning to the Soviet Union.
Strategic Foothold: After the 1960s, the U.S. shifted to viewing Israel as a critical proxy against Soviet-backed Arab states like Egypt and Syria.
Intelligence and Technology: Modern U.S. support is based on Israel's role as a strategic partner providing intelligence, advanced technological cooperation, and maintaining a Qualitative Military Edge (QME) in the region.
Key Turning Point: The 1956 Suez Crisis
The U.S. did not support Israel's 1956 move to capture the canal. Instead, the Eisenhower administration used economic pressure—threatening to cut off aid and collapse the British pound—to force an Israeli, British, and French withdrawal.
The U.S. only began providing significant military assistance in the early 1960s and solidified the "special relationship" after the 1967 and 1973 wars, where Israel proved to be a powerful Cold War asset against Soviet influence.
Are you able to dig into this topic Tomas? Thank you!
The Palestinians have a long history of spitting in the face of those that have welcomed them. The MSM never mentions this instead painting the Palestinians as a poor, unloved, suffering population. Palestinians are at the bottom of the Arab peoples hierarchy, unable to survive on their own without generations of unending trucks of food and medicine welfare from the UNRWA, their own personal UN Agency that no other suffering population has..
Here are a couple of articles that go into more detail on the reasons that no neighboring country has offered even just Gazan Palestinian woman and children safety out of the war zone.
"between the Sea and the Jordan there will only be Israeli sovereignty" (Likud, 1977)
Let's be honest, the reason that there is no peace in Israel-Palestine is that the Israeli leadership wants ALL THE LAND--this is the essence of Zionism, an an ethnocultural nationalist movement that seeks to establish and support a Jewish homeland through the colonization of Palestine. Zionists want to create a Jewish state in Palestine with as much land, as many Jews, and as few Palestinian Arabs as possible. (Wikipedia)
His wealth is based on where he does business, not what his residency is. The fact that we allow rich people and corporations pull stuff like that is really annoying. I use Revolut, but the moment I found out about that stunt I started looking into zen.com. Rich people need to stop thinking they are above the society.
Is Zuckerberg UAE resident or does he simply pay himself $1 to avoid income tax (which is clear tax avoidance and should be penalised)? Storonsky was happy to use UKs legal and financial systems, infrastructure, human capital etc. to get rich. Revolut HQ is still in Canary Wharf, so he can dial in from Mars, but the value is generated in UK AFAIC. This is where income and wealth tax are due.
We should be careful to note here that satellite internet and telephony is very useful for rural settlements or low density users, but the fundamental problem of shared spectrum and hence bandwidth limitations means it will never be the way of mass concentrated adoption.
That said, for the purposes of the rich, dissident, or isolated, that's fine.
I've looked at this in some detail before and the restrictions on total bandwidth and speed Vs attenuation for a shared spectrum area are pretty fundamental; see the short range of 5G towers due to the short wavelengths/high frequencies required to achieve high speed.
I don't know what is the agreement, but agreements can be made to get Starlink to not run on your country. Turkey has lacklustre consumer internet which is more or less as expensive as a Starlink membership. Somehow Starlink agrees to not sell subscriptions in Turkey, and one cannot also buy a subscription elsewhere and use it in Turkey. Leaving money on the table doesn't make much sense so probably there needs to be an agreement of sorts.
I'm not opposing you, just didn't know if you were already aware of such arrangements and was saying there might be cases in which a company might decide to not take the cash on the table for other reasons, and that can be frustrating for potential customers.
Strong synthesis here, especially the coherence research on city specialization. The finding that small cities succeed through concentrated focus while large ones diversify feels counterintuitive at first but makes total sense when you think about how ecosystems develop. Spent some time in a smallmanufacturing town last year and the cluster effects were visible everywhere, from suppliers to talent pools to informal knowledge sharing. What's less obvious is when the inflection point happens, when a city should start diversifying rather than doubling down on specialization. California Forever's dual foundry + shipyard approach might actually be testing that question in real time tbh.
Tomas, love your work, but your infographic about the supposed flight of the millionaires from the UK is wrong and grossly exaggerated. Also, stating that it's only the Palestinians who don't want peace after Israel has just been credibly accused of inflicting genocide after decades of military occupation is ridiculous! The hatred runs deep when extremists on both sides are empowered.
You should not use words that you don't understand the meaning of, such as "genocide". There has been no such thing in Gaza. In fact, do to apparently unstoppable baby making by Palestinians (out of design until they can't fit in their territories any longer and are forced to expand into Israel?), the population in Gaza now is actually greater than it was on Oct 8, 2023! This is "genocide"? Be serious...
There's a mistake in the 60k€ tax calculation (at least for Spain): a single-no kids spanish worker earning 60k€ would pay around 25%. Adding Social Security charges, you get 68% of your salary. I think the guy who made the chart was using marginal tax rates.
I'm pretty sure the chart includes employer contributions, going by the wording, not just individual taxation. In most of Europe this is a very significant part of the total.
This also doesn't capture the *shape* of taxation; the UK, for instance, has relatively low taxes on median earners but very high taxes on high earners, such that a huge proportion of the tax take is from the top (unlike e.g. the Nordics where everyone is taxed highly).
I love this! It's one of the most insidious ways in which governments tax citizens in a way they don't realize.
Yes, that money comes from the pocket of the employer, but it would have gone into the pocket of the employee if the government hadn't intervened in the middle to take it!
In a competitive market (which labor mostly is), companies will spend on employees an amount proportional to the value they bring. For example, the market dynamics might determine that a certain salary is worth 100. ("marginal product of labor = total marginal cost of employing the worker.")
If the government says "You have to pay me 20 for that salary", it's not like the company will suddenly say "OK, then I'll pay 120, and the employee will still receive 100". No! The determination of the cost of employees comes from the market! So the employer will still spend 100, and now the employee only gets 80.
(The numbers are rounded for clarity)
I'm exaggerating here: Reality is in between. Some part ends up being carried by the employer. How much? According to this meta-analysis, between 66% and 90%
That's why it says labour cost and not salary on the graph, right?
I don't think the distinction is that important to be honest; total cost of employment is the relevant metric from a company's hiring decisions perspective, and whether that cost is salary, perks, taxes, or other is neither here nor there; in each case this is money allocated to that employee.
Once an AI comes into power, either through force or being elected/anointed by a dissatisfied population, then the need for nations and borders disappears, as does the need for governments and politicians to represent the interests of humans.
With a single AI in charge of the whole world, logical decisions will prevail. There will be one set of rules for driving on a single side of the road worldwide. There will be one language, most likely English but perhaps Esperanto. Robots will do all work in the world. People can live wherever they want. Everything will be provided free by the AI and its robot workers, so there will not be any need for money.
This s the future awaiting us in perhaps in perhaps no more than 20 years!
On income kept vs millionaires migrated: I merged the two datasets (19 countries in both) and there is absolutely no correlation whatsoever. How does your point hold up against that?
Tomas, you really do great research, wonderful thinking and fantastic synthesis on every topic - except that of Israel.
You have in recent months highlighted the reasons that Palestinians are to be blame entirely for the conflict. Your reason? That Palestinians don't want peace. That is the only reason?
A March 2025 poll conducted by Pennsylvania State University and published in Haaretz found that 82% of Israeli Jews support the "transfer" or forced expulsion of Palestinians from the Gaza Strip.
The Penn State study also found that 47% of Jewish Israelis agreed that the IDF, when conquering an enemy city, should "act as the Israelites did in Jericho... killing all its inhabitants".
Israeli Heritage Minister Amichai Eliyahu said on Sunday that dropping an “nuclear bomb” on the Gaza Strip is “an option”. The Institute of Strategic Dialogue found that between 7 October 2023 and 7 October 2024, there were more than 513,000 English-language posts by 261,000 unique authors with ‘no innocent Palestinians’ rhetoric. The president and defence minister said they were human animals. And therefore, killing new born babies and children is fine.
Israelis were horrified by the rape and killing of Palestinian prisoners at the notorious Sde Teiman detention facility. Not because the solidiers who perpetrated these crimes should be put on trial, but that this should be considered normal and standard practice with Palestinian prisoners, and that they should be released. Which they were. Between 84 and 98 Palestinian detainees have died in Israeli jails since October 7, 2023, according to the United Nations.
In effect you are blaming the victim Tomas. Brown University estimates $21.7 billion of military aid has been provided to Israel since October 7 2023, and neither Republicans nor Democrats have put any limits on Israeli activity. Since the so-called peace plan came into effect, Israel controls more than 53% of the Gaza.
'Oh but Hamas' you say. There is no Hamas in the West Bank, and yet the same thing is happening there. Israel plans to annex 82% of the occupied West Bank to prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state, far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said in September. “Israeli sovereignty will be applied to 82% of the territory,” Smotrich, the leader of the far-right Religious Zionism Party, told a press conference in Jerusalem. It already controls more than 70% through settlements and walls.
Bibi Netanyahu went to the UN showing a map of Israel with no Palestine. This is part of the Greater Israel project which is thinking of taking much of Lebanon, Syria and Egypt, and has already made significant inroads in that plan, with land grabs up to the Litani River in Lebanon and close to Damascus in Syria.
And this is all nothing new. One of the fathers of modern Israel, Menachim Begin, was called a terrorist by the British, and was even reported to have proudly started a speech by proudly saying he was a terrorist. In the formation of Israel, over 700,000 Palestinians were expelled from their homes. They were not compensated, there was no deal, they were driven out at gunpoint. Many of those driven out had given refuge to Jewish refugees, just as they had done to Armenian refugees before that, and just as many in Europe had to Ukrainians.
Imagine having given refuge to a Ukrainian, and then have them lock your doors and told to leave or you will be shot. That is exactly what happened to many of those Palestinians.
Tomas, you are an intelligent and well-meaning individual. You have also been fed a steady diet of Zionest propaganda, as have most people reading western media. It is time that you at least allow the possibility than not everything you have read is the complete truth, and start to do your own research into this complex subject.
Everything I have referenced is based on reported research or stories. Most of it from Israeli media, which has a much more rigorous debate on these topics than in the US or UK. I would suggest you start there.
Thank you very much for your comment.
Yes, when one side doesn't want peace, you can't have peace. Since I first noticed this issue in 2008, I have not seen this change.
The key difference between that and the numbers you quote is that these are *after October 7th 2023*. If you look at all the data from before, you'll see these were not widespread beliefs for Israelis.
More importantly, if today you ask Israelis: "Would you support a solution where magically all Palestinians wanted to cohabit with Israelis, they would never try to kill Israelis or invade Israel, and they got Gaza and the West Bank as their state as a result?" I'm pretty convinced a big majority would say "Yes." It's the crucial asymmetry: Israelis do want peace and cohabitation, but after 100 y of conflict they're highly skeptical they can get it. Palestinians do NOT want peace and cohabitation.
I have written about how I disagree with the Israeli policy in the West Bank. The settlements are a very long-term strategy to gain negotiation power through facts on the ground, and the military law that rules there is morally unacceptable. The fact that settlers are given free reign to use violence against Palestinians is terrible. To complete the picture, however:
- Palestinians don't have any good leader, and that's not a coincidence, but a result of the culture
- Palestinians are considered a monolithic culture in the WB, but they're not. Clans are much stronger there than the idea outside suggests.
- The opinion of the people in WB is as radical as in Gaza
- You'd imagine, after 100y, that Palestinians would have tried another approach than violence. I believe if they seriously tried, they would get what they want. But they haven't, in the West Bank either.
So it's not black and white either.
I don't believe for a second in the "Greater Israel" narrative, and I don't think 90% of Israelis do either.
I have been fed Zionist Propaganda, and also Palestinian Propaganda, and everything in between. I've written 10 articles on the topic, and all my reasoning is public. You can point at any part you want to tell me what I'm saying that's wrong.
Most noticeably, you're not addressing my fundamental claim: You can't have peace unless both sides want peace, and Palestinians have never wanted peace.
Hi Tomas, thank you for your reply. Isn't it wonderful that that we can discuss this issue without reverting to ad hominem attacks, as seems to be the norm when discussing this topic! I appreciate you respecting my comment enough to answer, I acknowledge that you have researched your point of view and that you have thought through it.
Your suggestion that the views we see in Israel today are all after the terrible events we saw on *October 7th 2023* I think reflects the biased way in which the history of the region is seen in the west. Why do I say that? A cursory glance at Wikipedia lists 14 massacres that were carried out by Israelis of Palestinians in 1948. It lists a further 12 from 1953 to 2021, not including the period of 1956 to 1982 which is incomplete, but during which we know that the Sabra and Shatila massacre happened in Beruit, of both Palestinian refugees and Shia Lebanese, and which was estimated to have led to between 1,300 and 3,500 deaths. One massacre alone out of at least 27 documented cases that was already a more heinous crime than the one that you believe fundamentally changed Israeli opinion.
Now let us do something that we don't normally do in the west, and put ourselves in the shoes of Palestinians. Are they also allowed to have emotions? Are they allowed to want freedom? Are they allowed to grieve their dead? Are they not allowed to resist what bodies such as the United Nations, the International Criminal Court and the International Court of Justice, as well as genocide scholars, have described variously as illegal occupation, apartheid and genocide?
The de-humanisation of Palestinians I would argue is not an accident. The Lancet, Oxford Academic and a number of other bodies have reported the way in which western media reports on Israelis and Palestinians differently, for example Israelis being 'killed' or 'slaughtered' by Hamas, using words like 'barbaric', 'massacre', and 'atrocity', while Palestinians 'die' or are 'found dead', their suffering presented in clinical naturalistic language, as if it was through due to a weather event.
And is it really fair to say that there is only one partner for peace? Bibi Netanyahu has never actually wanted peace. A team led by Bibi and Richard Perle made their plan clear in 1996 when they wrote 'A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm', which argued for ... all the wars that the west has fought in the Middle East. Have you seen the yellow (or golden) noose-shaped lapel pin that members of the cabinet are wearing? How they openly call for prisoners to be killed? They are the members of a party that murdered. Yitzak Rabin, the last Prime Minister of Israel with an actual interest in peace. The current Israeli government includes what we used to think of as terrorists, and yet now we think of them as a credible partner for peace?
And in the spirit of empathy and caring for those less fortunate than us at this time of year, let us remember the Christians, Jews and Muslims who have the misfortunate to be Gazans, many of whom are refugees for the second, third or forth time, and who are currently experiencing this during the 'ceasefire':
The images and testimonies emerging from Gaza this winter are tragic and unbearable. A 2-week‑old infant, Mohammed Khalil, was found “cold as ice” in a tent flooded by days of heavy rain. A 29‑day‑old premature baby, Saeed Abdeen, died from hypothermia despite desperate attempts by his family to keep him warm in their falling-apart nylon tent. Families waking each morning to water flooding their bedding from underneath, unable to dry anything in the relentless damp.
This is not simply the consequence of a harsh winter and the elements. These are the predictable and preventable outcomes of a suffocating siege and systematic obstruction of aid that have stripped more than two million Palestinians of the minimum conditions required for human survival. Storm Byron may have brought the rain and freezing temperatures, but Israeli policy is what is killing children.
Over recent days, at least 16 deaths have been reported amid heavy rains and plunging temperatures. Waterlogged buildings collapsed on families who had no safer shelter, and three children were killed as the storm raged over displacement camps and makeshift tents atop rubble. More than 79,000 people are crowded into over 100 UNRWA schools turned into shelters, each one more damaged than the other, overrun with overflowing sewage from the rainfall. Humanitarian teams are attempting to address the issues on the ground in real time, but the most basic supplies needed, like timber, plywood, warm clothes, and proper tents, continue to sit idly at crossings as they are blocked by Israeli authorities.
The deadly cold fell on a population already debilitated by more than two years of relentless and indiscriminate bombardment, multiple forced displacements, and the collapse of Gaza’s healthcare system. Since the so-called “ceasefire” began on Oct. 10, we have repeatedly heard the international community call for a “scaling up of aid.” But the reality on the ground shows that the agreed-upon 600 trucks of humanitarian aid per day (outlined in President Donald Trump’s proposal) has yet to materialize. Instead, the average has been a fraction of that, around 244 trucks a day, according to Palestinian authorities.
Children are dying for lack of what any parent would call the bare necessities: blankets, tents, shoes, soap. More than 27,000 tents have been flooded, blown away, or ripped apart. Some 13,000 families are once again out on the street. OCHA estimates 795,000 people are in immediate danger amidst the freezing rain and plunging temperatures. And because construction materials are still restricted by Israel as so‑called “dual‑use” items, families have no way to reinforce their shelters. Even sandbags and water pumps sit blocked at the border.
Israel’s restrictions have also forced the closure of child‑friendly spaces and psychosocial centers. Save the Children shut down four of its sites due to flooding and sewage intrusion. And even if the children had access to these spaces of reprieve, they still lacked the shoes, coats, or safety to be able to trek through the sludge and mud that enveloped the camp’s dirt roads.
The cruelty of these conditions is tragically unthinkable. Families huddle around their infants at night. Mothers and fathers lie awake, checking whether their children are still breathing. The small bodies of infants are unable to generate enough heat to regulate their temperatures and not enough meat on their bones to insulate them further from the bitter cold. Healthy and full-term newborn babies are susceptible to complications caused by hypothermia, but in Gaza, many newborns are born prematurely with low birth weight and to mothers having difficulty nursing, confined to an ever-shrinking Gaza with no electricity, no sanitation, and no materials to rebuild. Respiratory infections are surging. Waterborne diseases are rising. If a Palestinian newborn or infant miraculously survives the cold night, they are still fighting for their life amidst communicable diseases and a lack of access to proper healthcare. Even the most vigilant parents who identify early signs of distress in their babies will find no ambulance or car to be able to navigate the streets during the flooding, and hospitals without warmers or supplies to revive them.
Despite the US brokered ceasefire, Israel has continued attacks that have killed hundreds of Palestinians and injured more than 1,000 since the agreement began. Homes are still being destroyed. Aid requests are still being rejected. Doctors are still being denied entry, including myself. Source: https://zeteo.com/p/babies-are-freezing-to-death-in-gaza.
Happy holidays to all in the Uncharted Territories community, and I hope we can continue to have these vital debates in 2026.
And now HERE is a geopolitical question that we could use your expert analysis on Tomas. In this video, Prof Jiang speculates that the real reason China, Russia and presumably the Gulf states have essentially done nothing to end the genocide in Gaza and support the 'Peace' Plan: the revival of the Ben Gurion Canal idea: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-W_Iz6eNCW0.
I know nothing about this other than cursory reading, which suggests that when you skirt the Gaza strip the cost becomes prohibitive, whereas cut right through the strip and voila! Economically viable, better for oil / international trade. Capital wins! Just need those pesky Palestinians out of the way.
This chimes with a historical analysis with why the British supported the state of Israel: the strategic need to secure the Suez Canal. This from Google Search AI overview:
British support for the establishment of a Jewish homeland was indeed driven by the strategic need to secure the Suez Canal, which was considered Britain's "imperial lifeline" for trade and communication with India.
Strategic Motivations (1917–1948)
Buffer Zone: British leaders hoped that a pro-British Jewish population in Palestine would act as a strategic buffer to protect the Suez Canal in neighboring Egypt.
Military Communication: Control over Palestine provided a foothold in the Eastern Mediterranean and a reserve military base near Egypt, ensuring vital communication routes to British colonies remained secure.
Pre-empting Rivals: Establishing a presence in Palestine was also intended to block other powers, such as France, from controlling areas too close to Britain's Egyptian interests.
It suggests the US strategic approach was more complex:
American Motivations (Shift to Post-1960s):
Anti-Colonialism: During the 1956 Suez Crisis, President Eisenhower forced Britain and Israel to withdraw to avoid appearing as a "colonial power" in an era of decolonization.
Cold War Containment: The U.S. initially sought "even-handedness" to prevent Arab nations from turning to the Soviet Union.
Strategic Foothold: After the 1960s, the U.S. shifted to viewing Israel as a critical proxy against Soviet-backed Arab states like Egypt and Syria.
Intelligence and Technology: Modern U.S. support is based on Israel's role as a strategic partner providing intelligence, advanced technological cooperation, and maintaining a Qualitative Military Edge (QME) in the region.
Key Turning Point: The 1956 Suez Crisis
The U.S. did not support Israel's 1956 move to capture the canal. Instead, the Eisenhower administration used economic pressure—threatening to cut off aid and collapse the British pound—to force an Israeli, British, and French withdrawal.
The U.S. only began providing significant military assistance in the early 1960s and solidified the "special relationship" after the 1967 and 1973 wars, where Israel proved to be a powerful Cold War asset against Soviet influence.
Are you able to dig into this topic Tomas? Thank you!
The Palestinians have a long history of spitting in the face of those that have welcomed them. The MSM never mentions this instead painting the Palestinians as a poor, unloved, suffering population. Palestinians are at the bottom of the Arab peoples hierarchy, unable to survive on their own without generations of unending trucks of food and medicine welfare from the UNRWA, their own personal UN Agency that no other suffering population has..
Here are a couple of articles that go into more detail on the reasons that no neighboring country has offered even just Gazan Palestinian woman and children safety out of the war zone.
Why Do the Arabs Hate the Palestinians?
By Lt. Col. (res.) Dr. Mordechai Kedar
September 24, 2020
https://besacenter.org/do-arabs-hate-palestinians/
AND
Worst Houseguests Ever: The Palestinians
December 20, 2023
By: David Anderson, J.D.
https://themoderatevoice.com/worst-houseguests-ever-the-palestinians/
"between the Sea and the Jordan there will only be Israeli sovereignty" (Likud, 1977)
Let's be honest, the reason that there is no peace in Israel-Palestine is that the Israeli leadership wants ALL THE LAND--this is the essence of Zionism, an an ethnocultural nationalist movement that seeks to establish and support a Jewish homeland through the colonization of Palestine. Zionists want to create a Jewish state in Palestine with as much land, as many Jews, and as few Palestinian Arabs as possible. (Wikipedia)
His wealth is based on where he does business, not what his residency is. The fact that we allow rich people and corporations pull stuff like that is really annoying. I use Revolut, but the moment I found out about that stunt I started looking into zen.com. Rich people need to stop thinking they are above the society.
The UK and Ireland make up less than 30% of his revenue?
Revolut pays corporate taxes for that.
Facebook makes money in Europe. FB pays corporate taxes in Europe. Should Mark Zuckerberg pay his personal income taxes in Europe?
Is Zuckerberg UAE resident or does he simply pay himself $1 to avoid income tax (which is clear tax avoidance and should be penalised)? Storonsky was happy to use UKs legal and financial systems, infrastructure, human capital etc. to get rich. Revolut HQ is still in Canary Wharf, so he can dial in from Mars, but the value is generated in UK AFAIC. This is where income and wealth tax are due.
We should be careful to note here that satellite internet and telephony is very useful for rural settlements or low density users, but the fundamental problem of shared spectrum and hence bandwidth limitations means it will never be the way of mass concentrated adoption.
That said, for the purposes of the rich, dissident, or isolated, that's fine.
I do think the math was suggestive that high density settlements could also be served!
I've looked at this in some detail before and the restrictions on total bandwidth and speed Vs attenuation for a shared spectrum area are pretty fundamental; see the short range of 5G towers due to the short wavelengths/high frequencies required to achieve high speed.
We are aligned on what Starlink Direct to Cell means for nations states https://disruptive-horizons.com/p/elon-musk-vs-the-nation-states
Yes!
I don't know what is the agreement, but agreements can be made to get Starlink to not run on your country. Turkey has lacklustre consumer internet which is more or less as expensive as a Starlink membership. Somehow Starlink agrees to not sell subscriptions in Turkey, and one cannot also buy a subscription elsewhere and use it in Turkey. Leaving money on the table doesn't make much sense so probably there needs to be an agreement of sorts.
This is only the case because Starlink wants to be in good terms with Turkey. This is not the adversarial scenario I shared!
I'm not opposing you, just didn't know if you were already aware of such arrangements and was saying there might be cases in which a company might decide to not take the cash on the table for other reasons, and that can be frustrating for potential customers.
Strong synthesis here, especially the coherence research on city specialization. The finding that small cities succeed through concentrated focus while large ones diversify feels counterintuitive at first but makes total sense when you think about how ecosystems develop. Spent some time in a smallmanufacturing town last year and the cluster effects were visible everywhere, from suppliers to talent pools to informal knowledge sharing. What's less obvious is when the inflection point happens, when a city should start diversifying rather than doubling down on specialization. California Forever's dual foundry + shipyard approach might actually be testing that question in real time tbh.
I agree! I got excited when I thought about it deeper.
I think you've identified all the right ramifications. Nice!
"He’s one of the most joyful, optimistic, intelligent, driven founders I know. His vision is very ambitious."
I do like that compliment!
Tomas, love your work, but your infographic about the supposed flight of the millionaires from the UK is wrong and grossly exaggerated. Also, stating that it's only the Palestinians who don't want peace after Israel has just been credibly accused of inflicting genocide after decades of military occupation is ridiculous! The hatred runs deep when extremists on both sides are empowered.
You should not use words that you don't understand the meaning of, such as "genocide". There has been no such thing in Gaza. In fact, do to apparently unstoppable baby making by Palestinians (out of design until they can't fit in their territories any longer and are forced to expand into Israel?), the population in Gaza now is actually greater than it was on Oct 8, 2023! This is "genocide"? Be serious...
There's a mistake in the 60k€ tax calculation (at least for Spain): a single-no kids spanish worker earning 60k€ would pay around 25%. Adding Social Security charges, you get 68% of your salary. I think the guy who made the chart was using marginal tax rates.
Mistake or misinformation?
I'm pretty sure the chart includes employer contributions, going by the wording, not just individual taxation. In most of Europe this is a very significant part of the total.
This also doesn't capture the *shape* of taxation; the UK, for instance, has relatively low taxes on median earners but very high taxes on high earners, such that a huge proportion of the tax take is from the top (unlike e.g. the Nordics where everyone is taxed highly).
That's my point precisley: employer contributions are indeed taxation, but not taken from the employees pocket.
Taxation in Spain follows the same pattern you explain for the UK.
That's why stating that 50% of your salary is taken from you is wrong (in the Spanish case at least)
I love this! It's one of the most insidious ways in which governments tax citizens in a way they don't realize.
Yes, that money comes from the pocket of the employer, but it would have gone into the pocket of the employee if the government hadn't intervened in the middle to take it!
In a competitive market (which labor mostly is), companies will spend on employees an amount proportional to the value they bring. For example, the market dynamics might determine that a certain salary is worth 100. ("marginal product of labor = total marginal cost of employing the worker.")
If the government says "You have to pay me 20 for that salary", it's not like the company will suddenly say "OK, then I'll pay 120, and the employee will still receive 100". No! The determination of the cost of employees comes from the market! So the employer will still spend 100, and now the employee only gets 80.
(The numbers are rounded for clarity)
I'm exaggerating here: Reality is in between. Some part ends up being carried by the employer. How much? According to this meta-analysis, between 66% and 90%
https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/series/v4y2013i3p247-271.html
So the right thing would be to take, say, 75% of the employers' contribution and apply them as the employee's income taxed by the government.
Hope that helps
That's why it says labour cost and not salary on the graph, right?
I don't think the distinction is that important to be honest; total cost of employment is the relevant metric from a company's hiring decisions perspective, and whether that cost is salary, perks, taxes, or other is neither here nor there; in each case this is money allocated to that employee.
"The Future of Nation-States"
----
They have no future!
Once an AI comes into power, either through force or being elected/anointed by a dissatisfied population, then the need for nations and borders disappears, as does the need for governments and politicians to represent the interests of humans.
With a single AI in charge of the whole world, logical decisions will prevail. There will be one set of rules for driving on a single side of the road worldwide. There will be one language, most likely English but perhaps Esperanto. Robots will do all work in the world. People can live wherever they want. Everything will be provided free by the AI and its robot workers, so there will not be any need for money.
This s the future awaiting us in perhaps in perhaps no more than 20 years!
I like this kind of publications!
On income kept vs millionaires migrated: I merged the two datasets (19 countries in both) and there is absolutely no correlation whatsoever. How does your point hold up against that?
What do you mean with income kept?
Please do share your math!
should have done that right away, sorry. See code, graph and text [here](https://html-preview.github.io/?url=https://github.com/brry/misc/blob/master/pueyo.html)