Me vs. The Livestreamer Destiny: Our Debate on Israel-Palestine

The one where Destiny rage-quits and blocks me.

Despite some disagreements, most viewers of our recent video response to my Dissident Dialogues debate on the Israeli-Palestine conflict were cordial, mature, and appreciated our effort to provide a thoughtful and nuanced perspective on the topic.

Then the famed livestreamer Destiny got a hold of it. In addition to his own hateful, insult-laden response, his fans swarmed us, leaving hundreds of messages similarly hostile in tone and harassing me to debate him. This response wasn’t entirely surprising; Destiny has long resorted to personal attacks and debate tactics that confuse rather than clarify discussions, such as red herrings and constantly interrupting his opponents.

For these reasons, it was obvious from the start that Destiny’s invitation to debate him on his livestream would beget more of the same treatment. While I’m proud of my performance at Dissident Dialogues, I’m new to being a public speaker, and I’m not as fast-talking, rhetorically practiced, or aggressive as Destiny. But I did want to debate him, just not in a format so heavily tilted toward his expertise. I wanted my views to be judged on their merits, not on my ability to deliver them on demand in a hostile environment. My expertise is as a writer, so I chose to debate Destiny in that medium, exchanging our positions back and forth via multiple lengthy Twitter/X threads.

My choice to debate Destiny in this format caused great annoyance to him and his fans. Destiny even banned a fan from his chat for correctly noting that I wouldn’t come on his stream because I’m “reasonable” and didn’t want to be treated maliciously.

Ultimately, Destiny rage-quit our debate by blocking me on Twitter/X. In his last post directed at me prior to the block, he called me a “degenerate,” told me to “eat shit,” and alleged that a brief moment in our Dissident Dialogues debate response video where I got emotional thinking about children orphaned by war, not more than a few seconds long in a five-hour video, was “crocodile tears shit” and “disgusting.”

Unfortunately, Destiny’s block made our entire debate unreadable, as its result was not only to block me from his feed, but also to make it impossible for viewers to click through the layers of quote tweets.

As such, I have reproduced the full text of our debate in the article below. Each “part” contains what on Twitter/X was three layers of quote-posts, with the entire debate consisting of eight parts. I hope you find it informative, and I invite our subscribers to share their own thoughts and disagreements with either of us in the comments. At The Black Sheep, we promote what Destiny and his fans don’t: using mature conversation and civil disagreement to navigate complicated and contentious issues.

My commentary on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has not exactly been very lucrative for me, and has in fact foreclosed professional opportunities, so if you’ve enjoyed my work and would like to help enable me to keep at it, please consider becoming a paid contributor to The Black Sheep (and receive all the benefits of a paid subscription, including access to our private Discord community).

PART I

JAKE: Yesterday Destiny streamed himself watching my & Briahna Joy Gray's debate against Eli Lake & Michael Moynihan at Dissident Dialogues, along with a portion from my debate response video. It was interesting to say the least… Destiny pauses the video every few seconds to issue rebuttals in the middle of sentences, filled with insults, and what appear to be emotional meltdowns.

Going through his entire debate watch down would be too much given my debate response video was already 5 hours long, but here’s my rebuttal to everything he says while watching the response video. [See the following parts for each rebuttal.]

DESTINY: Bored and on a plane, so here we go:

I opt for voice over text conversations because my preferred medium is live video; I appreciate when someone is able to demonstrate their comprehension of a topic during a conversation. There is something to be said for being able to understand a challenge posed to you and for you to be able to dynamically generate a response that incorporates your knowledge while adequately satisfying the question. I dislike text debates because it makes it easier for both sides to dodge questions (by simply not responding, or disappearing), selectively respond to only certain points (such as by only quoting or responding to a certain thing while ignoring the rest), waste time by responding to points that weren’t made made (no ability to clarify while you’re writing your response), and to draw in other sources for argumentation that weren’t available to one when they were making their original statements (meaning they are now essentially making new arguments since they are justifying old ones with material previously unknown to them).

I’ll respond to these arguments since I think it would be sad to leave them unchallenged, but I have neither the desire nor the inclination to carry on for weeks like this as it’s simply not worth my time to participate in what I consider a sub-standard format for these types of conversations, at least not on Twitter.

JAKE: Destiny responded, so let’s go through this.  

First, let’s point out what Destiny fails to respond to, which is his wild misrepresentations of my original arguments on his stream. Even if everything Destiny is saying now were correct (it’s not), those misrepresentations were malicious and paired with childish ad hominems. He ought to concede that he misrepresented me and my views, and apologize for falsely maligning my character to his hundreds of thousands of viewers. This is not the behavior of a decent person who actually cares about improving the situation on the ground in Israel/Palestine, whichever side of the conflict you’re on.

He also fails to address the point from this tweet, in which I press that if he’s going to claim I “don’t understand enough to responsibly speak on the issue,” and that if he concedes that if he knew less than me when he started speaking publicly, then he must apply the same standard to himself or treat me equally.

Note here that I’ve just pressed Destiny on a claim he didn’t respond to, showing that you can just as easily stop people from dodging questions over text as over video, contradicting his argument in this first new tweet of his. I think it’s much more likely that, rather than Destiny believing live video is objectively the best medium to get to the truth, he prefers having content for his stream and being in a format that plays to his strengths and diminishes mine.

Moreover, if you actually care about getting to the truth, bringing in new but relevant sources would be a benefit to written debate. It’s only a cost if your goal is to “win” against a person rather than actually identify correct ideas.

PART II

JAKE: In this clip, Destiny accuses me of having a “severe cognitive issue” and having half a brain for allegedly being incapable of understanding the words that were coming out of Moynihan’s mouth, or how Qatari funding would impact Hamas’s military capabilities. It’s pretty wild to me that Destiny can hear my words and not understand what I’m very clearly criticizing. As I said directly, I can’t find “the logic” behind Moynihan’s thinking. Here was the conversation:

Kisin: “If you come into my home and I kill your wife, and then I come into your home and kill you, your wife, your whole family, etc., isn’t there a point at which that ceases to be just?”

Moynihan: “Well, it depends if your wife is killed by an organization that is supported by sovereign states like Qatar and have enormous amounts of funding and essentially have an army.”

The missing logic in this answer is why this action becomes more just if the organization is supported by sovereign states. No one yet, including Destiny, has answered what it is about being an independent insurgency vs. being state-backed that changes the moral calculus.

Obviously I could just as easily redirect Destiny’s name-calling right back to him for not being able to understand the words that were coming out of my mouth, but I’d much prefer receiving an actual answer. Anyone who can comment with a syllogism proving the moral difference, please do.

DESTINY: The comparison that is given at the beginning of this clip is that of a single person breaking into a home, and then a person exacting a disproportionate revenge on the perpetrator. This is obviously wrong on a moral level, most people would agree. The comparison, however, is not apt for this conflict because it is not just a single person who happens to have committed a wrong, but rather it is a combination of actors representing a governing authority that has the support of other governing authorities behind it while committing the wrong.

The action taken, then, in response to the “immoral actor,” is not simply an act of “revenge,” it is an act to remove the ability for the immoral actor to “act again” against you in an immoral way. In this way, the analogy very clearly and obviously breaks down: if it were simply a single bad actor, then the single bad actor can be removed and the problem is solved. If it is a person (or people) acting on behalf of larger organizations that support it, then the conflict grows and the other supporting organizations must be considered when taking action against those who perpetrated the crime.

In the modern example that we’re discussing, members of multiple armed groups (Hamas, PIJ, and others) crossed the border into Israel to commit crimes against Israel. These were not simply individuals, these were individuals that were acting on behalf of larger organizations, organizations whose funding is also international. This means that the response to ensure that these individuals can’t act against has to happen with the understanding that these larger organizations are all involved in the conflict. It’s not enough to simply capture or apprehend the individuals responsible, rather the entire structure must be fought against.

None of this is to say that is justifies a certain number of civilian casualties, or ever justifies the explicit targeting of civilians, just that a person receiving direction and support from a larger entity obviously means that entity will be considered in victim’s response to the belligerents action.

JAKE: Destiny makes logical leaps at multiple points, failing to justify the argument I criticized from Michael Moynihan.

• DESTINY CLAIM #1: “If it is a person (or people) acting on behalf of larger organizations that support it, then the conflict grows and the other supporting organizations must be considered when taking action against those who perpetrated the crime.” 

  • LOGICAL LEAP: It’s unclear how acting “on behalf of a larger organization” makes it more justified to “come into your home and kill you, your wife, your whole family, etc.” as Moynihan implied. Your wife and family are local civilians and not related to actions against foreign state-funders who helped perpetrate the crime.

• DESTINY CLAIM #2: “These were not simply individuals, these were individuals that were acting on behalf of larger organizations, organizations whose funding is also international. This means that the response to ensure that these individuals can’t act against has to happen with the understanding that these larger organizations are all involved in the conflict. It’s not enough to simply capture or apprehend the individuals responsible, rather the entire structure must be fought against.” 

  • LOGICAL LEAP: It’s unclear how the need to fight the “entire structure” makes it more justified to “come into your home and kill you, your wife, your whole family, etc.” as Moynihan implied. The “entire structure” is in a completely different country.

Destiny also moves the goal posts by stating, “None of this is to say that is justifies a certain number of civilian casualties, or ever justifies the explicit targeting of civilians, just that a person receiving direction and support from a larger entity obviously means that entity will be considered in victim’s response to the belligerents action.” My original critique was that Moynihan was in fact justifying the attack on the “wife, whole family, etc.” because of the financial support from a larger entity (Qatar).

Let’s also note Destiny’s movement of the goal posts. He originally claimed that I was incapable of understanding Moynihan’s words and thus had “severe cognitive issues.” This remains clearly falsely, and I deserve a concession and apology from Destiny for it.

PART III

JAKE: In this clip, Destiny accuses me of being “malevolent and evil” for allegedly bringing up non-sequiturs incapable of refuting the claim that the Gaza Ministry of Health’s casualty count numbers were revised down.

Except I’m not even attempting to refute that claim here. The claim I’m refuting is Moynihan’s statement that the casualty count numbers “are very, very contested.” The GMH’s count isn’t actually contested by serious analysts of the conflict, and I prove that by explaining that the GMH is trusted by U.S. intelligence, Israeli intelligence, and NATO.

Moynihan did end the prior section of the debate by saying “even Hamas has revised their numbers down,” but I address this point in an entirely different portion of my video, and I make that fully clear both by saying verbally “we’re going to talk a lot about the numbers later in the video” and also displaying the actual timecode on screen for where I do it.

To try to prove that I’m “malevolent and evil,” Destiny Googles “gaza deaths revised” to show that I’m ignoring what he alleges is widely reported and agreed upon. Except the links he pulls up all support my claims. Per the very first result from his search:

On 6 May, the UN stated that 69% of the reported deaths were women and children. However, just two days later, it revised this figure to 52%. Despite this adjustment, the overall death toll in Gaza remains over 35,000. The UN explained that incomplete information had led to the initial higher percentage and that they are now using figures from the Hamas-run health ministry instead of the Government Media Office (GMO).

The GMH, now also being used by the UN, are the ones who did the revision, further bolstering my point about their trustworthiness. And this source confirms the casualty count wasn’t revised down, just the women & children percentage. All of this, including the implications of the revised percentage on the overall civilian-to-combatant death ratio, I go over in the later section of the video I marked with the timecode on screen.

DESTINY: Moynihan was correct to say that the current numbers are highly contested. This is irrespective of whether or not the GMH’s numbers in the past have been accurate or not. This is evidenced by the fact that you literally recognize him saying “even Hamas has revised their numbers down.”

You claiming that the revision bolsters the claim about trustworthiness is inane. The issue with this downward revision is not that they simply miscounted some deaths or relied on faulty reporting, but rather the actual classification of the deaths as being women/children vs men have now heavily changed based on this downward revision. It is unbelievable that they would make the mistake of not having complete information about over 10,000 deaths, but somehow nearly every single one of those “mistakes” just happened to be a woman or a child.

Also, the “revision” is not being done on the Gazan side. The revision is who’s numbers the UN are reporting. They are dropping the percentages that were given by the GMO while still retaining their overall fatality number, but why? If they are so unreliable that they are dropping so many deaths, so obviously skewed in one direction, and without even verifying the deaths themselves, why would we trust their total death count at all?

Funnily enough, Adi Wyner from Tablet Magazine reported on this many months ago, claiming that the way deaths were reported for women was highly suspicious, due to the linear increase of deaths being reported every day of the war. Funnily enough, this was reported way back in March(!!!) before any “official” revisions were even announced. I can fight over any of these statistical interpretations if you choose to misunderstand them.

Also, the “reliable” Government Media Office has resorted to reporting deaths simply from hearing about them in the media or from families, many times without including even evidence of a body at all.

The distinction here is that the Gaza Health Ministry seems to be more reliable than the Government Media Office, but does not report “women and children” deaths like the Hamas-run GMO does. So why did the world opt to use the GMO numbers instead of the GHM numbers? Why did the UN report on those numbers if the methodology was so sketchy? Time and time again, we’ve heard that all of these reported numbers were reliable and backed up, from people such as yourself, and part of that reliability came from the corroboration from third party NGOs and the UN. But now we find out that the UN and all of those NGOs, who leaned so heavily on these numbers for so many months, is revealing to us that a huge chunk of these deaths simply come from “reliable media reports” with no body or first hand verification whatsoever?

JAKE: Destiny remains wrong that Moynihan was “correct to say the current numbers are highly contested.” Destiny fails to recognize the difference between “unknown” and “contested.” We all agree that we are in the fog of war and we don’t have the final accurate numbers yet. This fact is not contested. Making revisions is part of clearing the fog of war. However, given the fog of war, every serious actor (Israeli intelligence, U.S. intelligence, N.A.T.O., and the U.N.) trusts the Gaza Ministry of Health numbers as the best available estimates. Only pundits and propagandists contest these numbers.

In the portion of my video Destiny attacked me before watching, I discussed a possible reason why the percentage of women and children deaths may have been revised. It seems he still hasn’t watched this, so I will direct him there.

I’d also point him to History Speaks, who has an excellent write up on the demographic sampling issues affecting the death counts:

First, regarding unidentified deaths (which are largely drawn from media reports), I believe that the press is more likely to report on airstrikes that disproportionately kill women and children. The existence of such a sampling bias would be consistent with the well-documented phenomenon of women and children victims of war getting more public sympathy and notice than adult male victims. This sampling bias would lead to an over-representation of women and children among non-identified deaths, but would not entail the reporting of faked deaths.

Second, regarding identified deaths, I believe that (for logistical reasons) killed Hamas fighters are more likely to be fully reported and identified to the MoH than are killed Gazan civilians. Since Hamas fighters are nearly all adult males, this would predictably lead to a relative over-representation of men in the reported deaths, at least since November, when the MoH began having to rely on media reports to document casualties.

In my video, I also note that verifying the complete identifying information of every dead Gazan, which includes their Israel issued identification number, is not plausible under the current conditions in Gaza. Israel required forensic scientists to identify all of the dead from Oct 7th. And Israel also reported incorrect numbers from Oct 7th at first, which took them months to revise. And Israel also at first reported deaths based on hearing about them secondhand without having all the bodies. There’s nothing wrong or suspicious about any of this on either Israel or Gaza’s side, it’s normal.

Destiny is simply wrong that “the ‘revision’ is not being done on the Gazan side.” The U.N. merely changed which sets of GMH’s numbers they report from. They are using the same total death count because they consider it most accurate, and they are using the percentages from the fully identified death count because they consider it most accurate. I agree with their evaluation of this. Destiny is also wrong that GMH doesn’t report a women and children percentage, I’m not sure where he’s getting that from.

The U.N. has clarified public misconceptions about this issue, which is aligned with everything I’m saying.

PART IV

JAKE: In this clip, Destiny refers to us as “stupid fucks” for… I’m not sure what. He then goes on to seemingly agree with our point by applying it to Yasser Arafat. What I find most interesting here is that he thinks he knows enough about me and holds such a tribalized understanding of my views that he assumes a critique of Arafat would somehow be a critique of my entire position.

DESTINY: There’s no real argument given here, so there’s not much for me to respond to, not sure why it was included in this. The point made in the clip they are (not) responding to is an important one, though: it’s important to make it clear that you cannot simply commit terrorist acts as a non-state actor and expect the international community to relentlessly defend your conduct in war.

JAKE: Destiny doesn’t understand that this clip was included because it demonstrates that he acted maliciously and is of poor character. As to the point we allegedly didn’t respond to, it was the very next thing we responded to in the video the moment after Destiny stopped watching.

PART V

JAKE: In this clip, I teach Destiny something he didn’t know when he’s forced to look up if using human shields is a war crime, and finds that I’m correct that it is.

My point was that if Hamas could credibly be said to be using human shields by the legal definition, then the ICC war crimes charges against Hamas would have included it. After learning that this is actually a war crime, Destiny then pivots to read a quote from Amnesty International which complains that Hamas endangers the lives of Palestinian civilians by operating within civilian areas.

Hamas does endanger civilians by operating in this way, and as I say in my video it’s appalling. But legally, endangerment is not enough; the war crime of human shields requires intentionally “utilizing” civilians, and that endangerment not merely be a side effect of urban guerrilla warfare.

Destiny should know this, given it's right there on his screen underneath the quote he read out loud. Destiny’s notes document features a quote from another Amnesty International article which fully supports my claims. It reads, “[Hamas] mixed with the civilian population, although this would be difficult to avoid in the small and overcrowded Gaza Strip, and there is no evidence they did so with the intent of shielding themselves. The extremely high population density in Gaza, a small territory and one of the most densely populated places in the world, entails additional challenges for all the parties involved in conflict or armed confrontation. … Intentionally using civilians to shield a military objective—often referred to as using ‘human shields’—is a war crime.”

DESTINY: I don’t know why you think me pulling up a source to verify what I’m talking about is “teaching me” something about this. I have pages of notes where I’ve written and recorded information relating to human shields that’s all publicly accessible, but feel free to invent whatever claims you want to bolster your bruised ego. There’s a reason why people like you prefer to present via “prepared” content like tweets and videos instead of live conversations, and it’s so you can try to mine for cheap “gotchas” like this without ever having to verify any knowledge of your own. I don’t have every part of the Rome Statue memorized, there’s a reason I take notes to refer to later on. That being said, your analysis fails on several different levels for your next paragraph.

1. Just because someone hasn’t been charged with a crime, doesn’t mean that there is no credible reason to say they aren’t engaging in the crime. There could be a variety of reasons why certain charges are or aren’t asked for, we aren’t privy to that information.

2. The ICC has not charged Hamas with any war crimes, because the ICC does not charge organizations, governments or states with crimes, it charges individuals. The ICJ is the judicial body that would be in charge of making charges against states or governments.

3. The ICC may not have charged the three Hamas leaders with the crime of human shields simply because they weren’t able to find evidence of those three being directly involved in ordering or engaging in it. That says nothing about Hamas itself, or whether the behavior is being engaged in during the conflict. The same that if the ICC didn’t charge Israeli leadership with a particular crime, it doesn’t mean that the crime isn’t occurring somewhere else in the conflict without the direct involvement of those charged.

No one believes that Hamas just “incidentally” operates near civilians because it has no choice to. Hamas chooses to conduct warfare in this way in order to gain a strategic advantage, by utilizing the co-location of military objects with civilian targets. This is done by operating exclusively in civilian uniforms, storing weapons in a multitude of civilian and holy places, encouraging civilians to stay in place to ignore evacuation notices and conducting warfare from civilian areas. Every single time one of these targets is hit, any civilians deaths are widely advertised across social media, even if the event wasn’t caused by Israel (see: al-Ahli hospital) in an attempt to slow down the Israeli military advance. This is, definitionally, human shielding.

For you to claim that Hamas endangers civilians as merely a “byproduct” of their war, when they have made zero effort to protect their civilian population, set up humanitarian corridors or invest in their safety whatsoever is laughable, bordering on insanity.

Another great example of human shielding was when Hamas forced an Israeli hostage to release a video claiming that the biggest fear they had of death was from Israeli attacks. This is Hamas weaponizing a hostage in order to gain a strategic advantage in combat by forcing the enemy not to engage in aerial strikes, as a captured hostage may be killed due to their location in the conflict. For further reading, I recommend this Mike Schmitt article on Lieber Institute for Law and Warfare.

JAKE: Here, Destiny projects his own bruised ego onto me. To be clear, there’s nothing wrong with Destiny looking up something to verify it or with me “teaching him” something. I brought this up in the context of his personal attacks on my intelligence and understanding of the conflict. I’m not “mining for gotchas” and no reader of ours should care about what knowledge we already have in our head or have to look up—they should care about what’s true. As I’ve already expressed to Destiny, unlike him, I don’t debate for sport.

Of substance, Destiny’s three listed points don’t make sense. The ICC’s incentive is to charge as many crimes it believes it can convict on. If, as Destiny claimed in his stream, it was so clear that Hamas uses human shields (as defined legally, not colloquially), then the ICC would charge. If the ICC doesn’t believe it has grounds to charge, then there’s no reason Destiny or Eli Lake should. Whether it’s Hamas as an organization or Haniyeh/Deif/Sinwar that’s charged by the ICC is irrelevant to the point. The allegations of human shielding are discussed as being so core to Hamas’s military tactics that it’s implausible to say that, if real, they couldn’t be charged at the leadership level.

I never claimed that Hamas was properly protective of their civilian population, and neither did the Amnesty International quote I cited from Destiny’s own screen. I’m not defending Hamas nor is Amnesty International. But taking insufficient actions to protect Gaza’s civilian population is distinct from actively weaponizing them.

Similarly, using civilian deaths once they’ve happened for PR purposes is different from wanting the civilian deaths to happen, which is the major distinction I was discussing in the section of the video Destiny watched.

Bringing Israeli hostages into this discussion isn’t germane as the hostages are already inherently weaponized. It’s also unfortunately true that Israeli strikes have led to many hostage deaths, and this is motivating toward the widespread protests in Israel for a hostage and ceasefire deal.

As to the Mike Schmitt article, he is entitled to his analysis and different lawyers often come to different opinions, but the ICC charges remain the best evaluation of this matter given their incentive to charge if they felt conviction was likely.

PART VI

JAKE: In this clip, Destiny calls me a “white dude” and “captain whitey.” Given he’s also white, I’m not sure what to make of that… So much craziness in this clip; this is a long one, as many points from the beginning of the clip will come back in towards the end. For context, my points in this section relate to Eli Lake’s claim that “Hamas fights in such a despicable way as to maximize the civilian casualties on their own side.”

First, to refute my point that it’s not plausible that support for Hamas would be so high among Palestinian civilians if Hamas wanted them dead, Destiny frustratedly asks, “who do you think started suicide bombing?” By the end of the clip I bring up Palestinian suicide bombings myself, but the notion that suicide bombers seeking their own and their enemies’ deaths means they seek their compatriots’ death is illogical. Military losses of every kind everywhere are typically suffered to advance the interests of the domestic population.

Next, to refute my point that it’s counter-evolutionary to believe a population of millions of people could be happily pursuing their own death, Destiny screams, “HAVE YOU EVER HEARD OF NAZI GERMANY OR WW2 JAPAN! … What the fuck kind of whitesplaining is this!” Given the Nazis were famously white, my confusion continues, as well as over the idea that the civilian Germans and Japanese were pursuing death rather than military victory. Certainly Japanese Kamikaze pilots were pursuing death, but just like suicide bombers, this was explicitly with the goal (however misguided) of advancing the well-being of the domestic population.

Destiny builds from this to accuse me of being “ethnocentric,” thinking all people across all times are “like White Americans,” and making “a retarded fucking point.” As I stated explicitly, my point is not cultural but “evolutionary.” I don’t at all believe all cultures are the same, but it’s equally absurd to attribute all human behavior to culture. Many things, and there’s perhaps no better example than the desire to live and not die, are cross-cultural because they are fundamental evolutionarily-driven aspects of human nature. As I say myself moments later when Destiny starts replaying my video, some people can get ideologically deranged out of this norm, but you can’t get a population of millions out of it.

To try to bolster his cultural point, Destiny pulls up the term “Shaheed” on Wikipedia while saying “wouldn’t it be crazy if there were even specific words some cultures have for people who might die in conflicts, what if there were like specific terms that some people would have to talk about martyrs for causes?” And yes, I certainly agree it would be crazy if there were the specific English word “martyr,” which roots back to the New Testament, and it were used while trying to make this point about Muslims.

Another hit in this clip is Destiny accusing me of being one of “these people who are like ‘ungh it’s all racism!’” In fact, I’ve spent most of my career working for conservative and anti-woke organizations where much of my job was refuting BS woke claims of racism. Once Destiny hears me acknowledge that some people can become ideologically deranged, he rants with a false prediction that I’m only going to give examples of ideologically deranged white people and not brown people… even though I’m directly referring to the Palestinian suicide bombers I mentioned just seconds earlier.

When I bring up the point that not just Hamas invaded Israel on Oct 7, but also Palestinian Islamic Jihad and others, Destiny laughs out loud and says “How does that make it any better!? What is this talking point!?” It seems to escape him that I’m making a video for the purpose of trying to educate people about the details of the conflict and not everything needs an ideological tinge. In so far as there was a point, it’s that understanding the differences between these groups has implications for the appropriate military response and negotiations.

The hits just keep coming when Destiny accuses Salomé Sibonex of being “privileged” and puts on a mocking voice to recite a privileged statement his hallucinated version of her might say. He narcissistically believes he has us completely figured out and can predict exactly what “people like us” would think, except that those who know Salomé know her public platform was built from her stance opposing woke privilege discourse.

Destiny’s next laugh comes at my correcting the Hamas quote “we love death more than you love life” is actually a misquote of “the Al Qassam Brigades loves death more than you love life,” and he laughs further when I refer to them as jihadist terrorists, rhetorically asking “why is Hamas in power again? How did they initially come into power as administrators in Gaza?” The answer to that is made clear by exit polling from the 2006 election in which Hamas won a plurality (importantly not a majority); the number one reason voters gave was combatting corruption in the Palestinian Authority, with 80% of voters supporting a peace agreement with Israel and 75% believing Hamas should change its policies regarding Israel.

Destiny absolutely loses his shit ranting in response to my claim that you can’t generalize the “Al Qassam Brigades loves death” quote to all Palestinians, triggered because to stress that point I took it even further and said you can’t even generalize that quote to all of Hamas. Destiny is baffled as to how I could make such a differentiation. Well, I stand by it completely; I’m referring specifically of employees of the Gaza Ministry of Health and other administrative workers. This was relevant because in my Dissident Dialogues debate, audience members clapped at hearing medics at the GMH counting the dead had been killed in Israeli strikes.

DESTINY: Sorry if being called white bothers you so much, I’ll stop. :)

Your first claim, that people would never support an organization that would utilize them in conflict in ways that would endanger them, is almost impossible to seriously engage with and betrays a misunderstanding of essentially all of human history.

The goal for Palestinians since ‘48 has always been the conquest of the entirety of the territory of modern Israel/Palestine (or the British Mandate for Palestine, or whatever you wish to call it). This goal has superseded almost all humanitarian issues relating to Palestinians, even if it means keeping them as refugees (neighboring Arab countries will not give citizenship to refugees from Palestine, instead keeping them that way to further their fight against Israel), keeping violent parties in power (Hamas won a majority of the seats in the PLO legislative elections), engaging in and supporting those who champion suicide bombings (Arafat), or engaging in military conflict without any realistic military goal in mind, even at the expense of Palestinian lives (the 2018 border riots). To note, I am not passing any sort of moral judgment on whether or not any of these particular strategies are noble or not, I am just recounting the strategies that have been embraced historically by the Palestinians.

The idea that Palestinians wouldn’t support Hamas simply because they utilize them as human shields is, quite simply, a western delusion that shows a lack of understanding for minds and cultures unlike your own.

The point about the Japanese people only supporting Kamikaze’s as suicide bombers is…fantastical; claiming they were only okay with military strategies that advanced the civilian population’s “well-being” is delusional. I’m not going to get into that in great detail here, but for anyone who’s interested, you can simply read about “total war” and Japan in World War II. Japan literally mobilized about a quarter of their population, men and women, to meet America should they choose to invade on southern Kyushu, with the stated goal of inflicting so many casualties that it would break the American will to fight. The Japanese were willing to accept the massive civilian cost of life, however, because for them, surrender was no option, even for the civilian population.

I have absolutely no idea what point you’re trying to make about “martyr” existing in English. Is the implication that there is no special honor or recognition for martyrs in Islam, or at least certain groups that weaponize parts of it for war?

I appreciate the link to an article written 4 years ago to prove your partner isn’t woke. I suppose they’re just stupid, then? if that’s any consolation.

You reference polling showing that the majority of Palestinians desired a peace agreement with Israel, but what is that supposed to prove? Of course people desire peace, the question has always been what peace looks like. You would (rightfully) laugh at an Israeli who desires peace by simply expelling every Palestinian from Gaza and the West Bank, why wouldn’t an Israeli laugh at a Palestinian who desires peace by voting for a party that had already proven itself willing to engage in violent, terrorist attacks, even against the calls of peace by Abbas?

As a note for others, this is not to say that the Palestinians or the citizens of Gaza are immovably married to perpetual death and conflict. In fact, it is right to say that the support for Hamas was largely driven by frustration with and corruption seen in the Palestinian Authority. It would be dishonest to say that all of Gazans maintained a majority opinion on violence at all points in time, but it would be equally dishonest to say that Gazans voted for Hamas and saw them as a party of peace who would cease all terrorist activity once elected. That’s why the priorities people saw of Hamas after voting for them were combatting corruption, guaranteeing domestic security and reducing unemployment, source from his linked poll.

Also, the reason it’s hard for the world to believe that the Gazan Health Ministry and other parts of the government stand on different ground than the al-Qassam brigades is because we’ve now seen how heavily integrated these different things are, despite the UN claiming before that it wasn’t the case, such as the continued use of al-Shifa for militaristic purposes (including the storage of hostages, the torture of detainees and command and control capabilities) and the location of headquarters underneath UNRWA buildings.

JAKE: Destiny continues his ego-driven ad hominems. Rather than conceding he maliciously misrepresented

Salomé Sibonex

and apologizing, he pivots to calling her “stupid” instead.

The entire swath of this post is also a contradiction. On the one hand he says, “The goal for Palestinians since ‘48 has always been the conquest of the entirety of the territory of modern Israel/Palestine.” On the other hand, he accepts the polling showing 80% of Palestinian voters wanted a peace agreement with Israel, while saying “Of course people desire peace, the question has always been what peace looks like.” Wanting full conquest is not the same as wanting any peace deal, and 75% of voters believing Hamas should change its policies regarding Israel (a stat Destiny ignored) certainly does not look like their wanting some maximalist version of conquest as peace. Destiny also weirdly points out that “Hamas won a majority of the seats in the PLO legislative elections” when they did so with only a plurality of the votes, which implies wider support among the populace than actually existed at the time.

Of course the goal for Palestinians broadly (separate from Hamas specifically) has not been conquest of the entire territory, it’s been the 1967 borders and Destiny knows that. This does not supersede humanitarian issues, because it is a humanitarian issue. To be generous, Destiny may be implying that a right of return is equal to “conquest of the entire territory,” but if so, this would be ridiculous. In practice, the right of return would not lead to Palestinian dominance over Israel, as only a portion would choose it over the Palestinian State (or remaining in another Arab nation). It’s unlikely a right of return would lead to even the 45% Arab minority that the 1947 U.N. Partition Plan intended for Israel.

As to the point about the word “martyr,” let me make my point more clear: Destiny’s entire sentence on stream was a blatant blunder. Speaking of the term “Shaheed,” he mocked us by saying, “wouldn’t it be crazy if there were even specific words some cultures have for people who might die in conflicts, what if there were like specific terms that some people would have to talk about martyrs for causes?” But in his own statement he used the “specific word,” the “specific term” of Western Culture—“martyr”—defeating his entire point while trying to make it.

In general, Destiny is playing mental gymnastics throughout this tweet, and refuses to reckon with my evolutionary point. About half of Palestinians right now prefer armed resistance as the means to end the occupation; that means too many of them support war, and I’m very open to having a conversation about that and what to do about it. But supporting war and honoring the martyrdom of others is very different from an entire society committing mass suicide in an attempt conquer all of Israel. That is a claim far beyond mere cultural differences that is clearly divorced from biological reality, and that is designed to paint Palestinians as less human. 

Real human shielding was what Israel did before it was (thankfully) overturned by their Supreme Court. As one example, “Nidal Daraghmeh, a 19-year-old Palestinian student, was shot dead after troops forced him to knock on the door of a wanted Hamas fugitive and shooting broke out.” Unfortunately, it seems that despite their high court, Israeli troops may be continuing this illegal and evil behavior.

PART VII

JAKE: In this clip, Destiny pauses me the second I mention the Hannibal Directive to shout “OH MY GOD” and complain that it has “never manifested in all of Israeli military history,” is a “theoretical doctrine,” and that I don’t have any “evidence of it existing,” only to unpause and hear me read a direct quote from an IDF commander where it manifested. To this one, I have to say it’s quite fun to have my recording win a debate for me without my even having been there.

Destiny also brings up the trade of 1,027 Palestinian prisoners for Hamas hostage Gilad Shalit as evidence against the Hannibal Directive, apparently unaware that the Hannibal Directive was revised and reinstated as military policy in direct response to Shalit’s abduction in order to prevent a similar situation from happening again.

DESTINY: The “OH MY GOD” is in response to people who run and scream about the “Hannibal Directive” to try and prove that civilian deaths were incurred on October 7th as a result of said directive (which you were trying to do), despite (to my current knowledge) absolutely no evidence being released of this being the case. Whether or not it’s utilized to prevent capture of soldiers is something I’ve read mixed information about, but it’s not relevant for October 7th.

For examples that you give relating to the Hannibal Doctrine, you cite a 2011 speech a commander gave, and in your tweet you link an article. Allow me to quote from the article that you’ve linked:

Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz reiterated on Monday that the so-called Hannibal Protocol, designed to prevent soldiers from being abducted, does not allow for a soldier to be killed in order to prevent his abduction.

To this one, I have to say it’s quite fun to have my opponent’s source win a debate for me without my even having to research it. Further quoting the article:

The issue created controversy last week when it was raised at a commanders' conference in the Southern Command. “A dangerous, unofficial interpretation of the protocol has been created,” a senior officer told Haaretz. “Intentionally targeting a vehicle in order to kill the abductee is a completely illegal command. The army's senior command must make this clear to officers,” he said. 

Prof. Asa Kasher, who in the 1990s wrote the IDF's Code of Ethics, also weighed in. “The protocol itself, in its current version, is not flawed. But the idea that better a dead soldier than a captive soldier is monstrous in my opinion. It's a total misunderstanding of the matter: Firing a tank shell in order to kill an abductee is both illegal and immoral. This is a disturbing interpretation, and the IDF would do well to make it clear that it is unacceptable,” Kasher said. 

Kasher, who participated in last week's conference, added that GOC Southern Command Maj. Gen. Tal Russo did a good job of correctly explaining the Hannibal Protocol to his subordinate officers.

The idea that it has ever been accepted in a widespread manner to kill soldiers at risk of them being abducted doesn’t seem to be supported by anything I’ve ever read. And the idea that this could have been applied to CIVILIANS on October 7th begs for some sort of evidence of support, something more than the misapplication of decades old quotes.

JAKE: Destiny just totally lies about me and what I was “trying to do.” While it’s believed that there were some amount of Hannibal Directive casualties on Oct 7th (a small and marginal percentage), this is completely irrelevant to what I was saying in this section. Because on his stream Destiny paused repeatedly to interject in the middle of my sentences, he totally missed their context. In this case, the Hannibal Directive was brought up in the context of misrepresenting quotes to impute incorrect views upon an entire population.

Even if the Hannibal Directive were never actually used once (it has been), the point in my video would still stand, which is that we shouldn’t take the quote I cited from an IDF commander instructing use of the Hannibal Directive and impute that attitude upon all of Israeli society just like we shouldn’t take the quote “The Al Qassam Brigades loves death” and impute it upon all of Palestinian society.

I’m obviously already aware of the quotes from the article I linked and take no objection to them, except I would disagree with Kasher that the Hannibal Directive as frequently interpreted wasn’t flawed, and I’d also direct our readers to this quote from the same article: “After Shalit's kidnapping the Hannibal Protocol was revised and reinstated. In an interview with Haaretz about two years ago, then-Nahal Brigade commander Col. (now brigadier general) Motti Baruch said, ‘The message is that no soldier will fall captive, and it's an unequivocal message.’ Baruch instructed his soldiers, in the event of an abduction attempt, to fire on the terrorists even at the risk of hitting the abducted soldier.’”

I’d also point out Asa Kasher’s more recent comments calling for an investigation about possible Hannibal Directive motivated fire toward Israeli civilians on Oct 7th.

Bigger picture, Destiny has again shifted the goal posts in this response. He claimed on stream that the Hannibal Directive “never manifested in all of Israeli military history,” is a “theoretical doctrine,” and that I don’t have any “evidence of it existing.” He remains wrong.

PART VIII

JAKE: Destiny stops watching my video shortly after that, perhaps in frustration over losing to my recording in the prior clip.

This whole experience was rather strange. I used to be a fan of his, and I’ve continued to watch his major debates even since he’s pivoted into Israel discourse. It’s a weird experience to watch someone I follow emotionally rage at a video of me.

I don’t say this to dunk or be mean, but I genuinely suspect his divorce has been hard on him and he’s not doing great. He’s always treated debate as a sport, but the extent to which he puts winning above all and smears his opponents has reached new lows. He uses verbal harassment and bullying in place of logic. It feels like an outlet for personal frustrations.

I wish him the best, and if you want to watch the full stream these clips were from, it’s here. Or better, watch my full debate response video instead.

DESTINY: I have no idea why you think invoking my divorce would help you, but have at it, I expect nothing more at this point from your kind on the internet. :)

JAKE: Destiny criticizes me for bringing up his divorce. I brought it up not to “help” me, but to help him by being generous in attributing a sympathetic motive for what could lead someone down the path of acting so maliciously toward others. The other alternative is a personality disorder.

I’m someone who has always sought to treat my intellectual opponents with respect and generosity. I aim to convince, not defeat. I’m also someone who—agree with me or not—is trying to do the right thing by correcting falsehoods in the Zionist narrative that I was raised to believe in, falsehoods which have caused incredible harm to Palestinians.

Insulting me and mischaracterizing my arguments the way Destiny did doesn’t help anyone understand this conflict—it just encourages his fans to make a bad issue worse by further tribalizing a famously tribalized discourse. Serious issues warrant serious debates, not the energy of a wrestling match.

I actually want to help solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Does anyone believe that’s why Destiny got into this?