The Ultimate Self Defense Championship is an interesting piece of YouTube slop that has me looking at an Israeli UFC fighter's twitter post. There was a guy, Rokas, who went viral because he spent a long time being an Aikido student and instructor only to fight an MMA fighter and realize that he didn't know the first thing about combat (sports). So he spends years learning MMA, BJJ, boxing, and the like to come back and have some sparring with the same guy. Rokas grew up bullied in Lithuania, so being able to fend off attackers was really valuable to him.
He ends up making this game with his friends where he puts himself and them in these self defense challenges like "what if you have 25 seconds in a cage with someone with a knife?" and "what if you have someone else with you?" and "what if your boss is being weird?" He eventually gets got in training (I think someone hits him with a Kani Basami and all the screws and springs in his leg fly out) and becomes the manager for the thing instead of a participant. Each year he ups the production quality and the scenarios get more elaborate. They're currently in the middle of season 3.
Interestingly, one of the recurring characters is ex-UFC fighter Natan Levy. He's an Israeli which, you know... is not exactly our favorite customer. He wears a star of David on his rash guard. People I liked watching were okay being around him and he sticks around. However foolishly of me, and feel free to tell me how foolishly, it made me want to understand him instead of just calling him an Israeli. I dig a little bit trying to see if I can get a quote from him. His whole thing is his distaste for antisemitism. Notably, I can't find a quote from him conflating antizionism with antisemitism. He teaches Jews self defense, but notably he says they're welcoming to anyone who feels bullied. He cares about community, self-esteem, and not being victims. At most he says "antisemitism is on the rise after October 7th." This is, of course, true and easy to have happen when you have the greater Satan state apparatus doing that antizionism conflation as their only messaging and using legal channels to express it.
Then I find the core I was looking for. Khamzat Chimaev, motherfucker wrestler from hell (positive) and current Middleweight champion of the UFC, is talking about Israel. He has deep ties to the Chechen Republic. He is perhaps more entangled than he is a willing participant, but that's speculation and navel gazing. He's a devout Muslim and famous for his personality softening after becoming a father. The point is, he's on Instagram and he goes "You are just guests of Palestine, respect them for giving you asylum, one day you will be expelled from Palestine inshaallah. Give me the strongest man from Israel, I will break him." Again, would love to see either of those things in the wake of a genocide. Natan Levy replies to him.
Natan Levy's reply
Khamzat,
If you have a problem with me or my people, I'm very easy to find. One phone call to Dana White (Hexbear note: CEO+President of the UFC/match maker of which they are both part of at the time) is all it takes.
Now let me educate you:
WE ARE NOT GUESTS,
WE ARE HOME
Jews and Palestinians have ties to the land,
Israel's population is 20% muslims;
most identify as Arab or Palestinian by nationality and Israeli by citizenship, They are equal citizens, are Doctors, Lawyers, Judges, serve in the government and even the military.
Both Israelis and Palestinians want to be treated with dignity and humanity. We both want the world to recognize our ties to our homeland where we have lived in for thousands of years.
We are willing to share the land and we have, but we will never leave it!
Palestinian leadership has declined at least seven offers to split the land between Jews and Arabs in exchange for peace.
Israel even withdrew from the Gaza Strip as a peace offering in 2005 but now rockets are launched from there at our homes.
Their leaders would rather keep the people in pain while they hold onto money and power. Palestinian Authority hasn't held elections in almost two decades.
You are a mouthpiece for these corrupt leaders.
Your hateful statements do nothing but intensify the conflict and tear us further apart.
Now, I don't agree with him about the equal citizenship of Muslims in Israel. I wouldn't agree with him about how the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict came to pass. And admittedly I'm not one to speak authoritatively about how the Palestinian Authority has acted. Though I've come to understand events like Hamas being willing to dissolve in exchange for peace, broken peace treaties, and, you know, Israel using... less than safe and expeditious strategy for getting hostages/POWs returned from an illegally occupied territory & open air prison.
But if I grew up in Israel and I understood history as he did, I can imagine seeing the world as he does. If he has expressed anything across his body of work and statements, it's that he does want people to be treated with dignity and humanity, something we can all agree on. Rockets bad, something we can all agree on. If you're American, I imagine you know what it's like to have a bloodthirsty leader who wants more bloodshed and pain. And, as a stupid asshole half way across the world, it's not really my place if I saw a 1 state solution where it's decidedly not an ethnostate, to encourage people to struggle for more. A free Palestine and an equal Israel (10000000000% more likely to just be on paper just and covertly awful, but if not) would theoretically be a healthy society.
Now, if I go to Natan's Wikipedia page and ctrl+F "idf" or "israeli defense" I get 0 pings. The only ping I get on Google is that Etay Levy served for 3 years and didn't like it; thank you very much for being stupid and useless, AI. So to what extent I'm seeing what I'm meant to see I don't know.
I don't think Natan Levy is a virulent anti-Palestinian monster. To a large extent he seems informed by his circumstances, but aren't we all? I don't believe I have his full story, but nothing is screaming to me that he wants more carnage or believes in a supremacist future. I think his understanding of the Arab-Israeli conflict is ahistorical and dangerous, but his understanding of our shared humanity would likely see me giving him the benefit of the doubt. Thoughts?
: whisper whisper whisper
Stop, Anakin. You're hurting me