Pretty funny that this post gets a bunch of thanks, while the post below goes unremarked.
Going to the Republican playbook on Hunter Biden = contemptible.
Naked anti-semitism = cool, cool, cool
The overriding aim of a liberal society is to find a way for people who disagree about important things to get along so our society and public institutions can continue to function without tearing itself to pieces. The habit of treating people who disagree with you as enemies and then attributing the worst motives to them - which is how political discourse typically goes online - is illiberal. Which is why I often take issue with it.
But in all seriousness, I think people just ignore that poster. Like you did, when he made a racist comment in the Canadian Politics thread and you talked about housing instead.
Israeli assailants set homes and vehicles ablaze in three West Bank Palestinian villages and pelted Palestinian cars with rocks on Sunday night, apparently in violent protest over the release of Palestinian prisoners within the framework of the hostage-ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas.
Israeli human rights groups and Palestinian activists reported attacks, apparently by extremist settlers, in the town of Turmus Ayya, the villages of Sinjil and Ein Sinya, and along Route 60 close to the village of Luban e-Sharkiya, all in the central West Bank north of Ramallah.
U.S. President Donald Trump on Monday rescinded sanctions imposed by the former Biden administration on far-right Israeli settler groups and individuals accused of being involved in violence against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, the new White House website said.
I call BS. They say that the actual death count is 41% higher than reported by Palestinians themselves. And they report it now. Did Lancer know it a month ago? Six months ago? The difference so large couldn't come up so late. Why didn't they say anything? In order to count death, one need to do it daily, from the very start of the war. One can't count it now that most are buried. Any number, that magically comes out at the last day of war is fishy by default.
First of all, daily counting is prone to being massively unreliable under many conditions.
Second, the method of capture-recapture analysis is considered perfectly valid.
Third, the very idea that you deny the possibility of estimating the dead after the fact as being anything other than fishy basically shows that you don't actually want to know and are already guarding yourself against the very idea of literally ever having to accept reality.
Fourth, it's well worth remembering that the Lancet study only estimates violent deaths, and thus is likely to be a severe undercount of actual deaths caused by the genocide. Which of course hasn't ended, just moved to a different, slower phase.
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For anyone actually interested (which I'm guessing is almost no one), here's a video with a simplified explanation, with notes on more valid criticism than Pointmans kneejerk.
There's little point of course. Everyone half familiar with the situation knows that Israel has beem actively trying to stop any outsiders (journalists, researchers etc.) from seeing or recording the carnage, and continue to do so, which if you have a functioning brain makes it obvious that Israel thinks they have everything to hide.
So the government and their defenders will forever and ever discredit any attempt at getting a picture od the reality.
Plus it doesn't matter because people having opinions about what happens and happened in Gaza doesn't actually change anything.
Last edited by Itse; 01-21-2025 at 01:57 AM.
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It's almost like the illegal settlements are inflaming tensions.
It's almost like Israel is a vast country full of individuals with diverse political views, where a few extremists don't necessarily represent the whole. You're painting all of Israel with the actions of a few.
I thought you were one of the ones saying that Hamas <> Gazans?
So you apply it one way, but not the other? And you guys called me disingenuous... Come the frick on...
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It's almost like Israel is a vast country full of individuals with diverse political views, where a few extremists don't necessarily represent the whole. You're painting all of Israel with the actions of a few.
I thought you were one of the ones saying that Hamas <> Gazans?
So you apply it one way, but not the other? And you guys called me disingenuous... Come the frick on...
That’s very clearly not the suggestion here, which is another example of you being disingenuous. If anything, you’re restating the exact point Fuzz is making, that “Israel just wants to be left in peace” is an invalid statement, as it is a vast country full of individuals with diverse political views, where the wishes of many civilians don’t necessarily represent the wishes of the government of the extremist groups they support.
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It's almost like Israel is a vast country full of individuals with diverse political views, where a few extremists don't necessarily represent the whole. You're painting all of Israel with the actions of a few.
I thought you were one of the ones saying that Hamas <> Gazans?
So you apply it one way, but not the other? And you guys called me disingenuous... Come the frick on...
You know they are encouraged and assisted to make these settlements by the government, right? And taxpayers support this, right? Like, this isn't some random nobody's grabbing a tent and a gun and heading to the hinterlands. These are settlements supported by the government and Israeli organizations all over the globe, and they are indisputably illegal, and the actions taken by the settlers are illegal. This isn't how you make peace, this is how you slowly take territory until there is nothing to fight over, and no one left to fight.
That’s very clearly not the suggestion here, which is another example of you being disingenuous. If anything, you’re restating the exact point Fuzz is making, that “Israel just wants to be left in peace” is an invalid statement, as it is a vast country full of individuals with diverse political views, where the wishes of many civilians don’t necessarily represent the wishes of the government of the extremist groups they support.
It is absolutely open to interpretation. It's completely reasonable the way that I interpreted it, regardless if you agree or not.
Further, I would argue the majority of Israel wants to be left in peace, therefore, yes Israel wants to be left in peace. I know this because I've been to Israel, I know people from Israel, and know people that served in the IDF,
You know they are encouraged and assisted to make these settlements by the government, right? And taxpayers support this, right? Like, this isn't some random nobody's grabbing a tent and a gun and heading to the hinterlands. These are settlements supported by the government and Israeli organizations all over the globe, and they are indisputably illegal, and the actions taken by the settlers are illegal. This isn't how you make peace, this is how you slowly take territory until there is nothing to fight over, and no one left to fight.
While I do personally agree with the second part of your statement (regarding how to make peace), I again think that you're oversimplifying the first part. It's like saying because Trump was elected in the US, every American supports his actions because they pay taxes, which then gives him the mandate to carry out his agenda.
Israel currently has a coalition government. I am sure that there are numerous people that voted for Bibi, who are outraged at him for forming a coalition with the most right wing party in the Knesset. What you're saying is a vast oversimplification of a highly nuanced issue. What is fair to say (and I would agree with) is that in your opinion, the expansion of settlements in the West Bank is not a path to peace for Israel.
That's quiet the deflection. 50% support he annexation of the West bank in whole, or in part. This is illegal. Half the country supports illegally stealing land from another people.
Aya al-Dabeh was 13 years old and was living with her family and hundreds of other refugees at a school in Tal al-Hawa, in Gaza City in the north. She was one of nine children.
One day at the start of the war Aya went to go to the bathroom upstairs at the school and - her family says - she was shot in the chest by an Israeli sniper. The Israel Defense Forces say they do not target civilians and blame Hamas for attacking from civilian areas. During the war the UN Human Rights Office said that that there has been "intense shooting by Israeli forces in densely populated areas resulting in apparently unlawful killings, including of unarmed bystanders."
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When the Israeli military took over the school Lina fled south. She went with four other children - two daughters and two sons - to reunite with her husband who'd gone earlier with the couple's other children. Lina had no option but to leave her daughter where she lay, hoping to come back and recover the remains for a proper burial once peace came.
"Aya was a very kind girl, and everyone loved her. She used to love everyone, her teachers and her studies, and she was very good at school. She wished well for everyone," Lina says. When the ceasefire came Lina asked relatives still living in the north to check up on Aya's grave. The news was devastating.
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"They informed us that her head was in one place, her legs were in another, while her ribs were somewhere else. The one who went to visit her was shocked and sent us the pictures," she says.
"When I saw her, I couldn't understand how my daughter was taken out of her grave, and how did the dogs eat her? I can't control my nerves."
The relatives have collected the bones and soon Lina and her family will travel north to carry Aya's remains to a proper grave. For Lina, there is grief with no end, and a question that has no answer - the same question that sits with so many parents who lost children in Gaza. What could they have done differently, the circumstances of the war being what they were?
"I couldn't take her from where she was buried," says Lina. Then she asks: "Where could I have taken her?"
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The Israeli government has banned the BBC and other international news organisations from entering Gaza and reporting independently.
Truly a special and rare kind of cruelty that the thousands of Israeli perpetrators in the IDF and government possess. For the vast majority of humans, doing these sorts of things would be incredibly hard. Not them though.
I’d like Egypt to take people,” Trump said. “You’re talking about probably a million and a half people, and we just clean out that whole thing and say, ‘You know, it’s over.’”
“Something has to happen,” Trump said. “But it’s literally a demolition site right now. Almost everything’s demolished, and people are dying there.” He added: “So, I’d rather get involved with some of the Arab nations, and build housing in a different location, where they can maybe live in peace for a change.”
Most Arab nations are terrified of letting Palestinians in because of what has happened in the past. They tried to overthrow the monarchy in Jordan, caused insurgencies in Lebanon, and formed terrorist groups that targeted the Egyptian government and civilians. Nobody wants to get involved in those hang ups. There is a reason why the border security between Gaza and Egypt is just as secure as the one between Gaza and Israel.
Palestinians, especially those in West Bank, actually have a decent claim to Jordan though. Many of them were pushed out by the Hashemites, a Saudi dynasty, into what is now the West Bank and Israel. For a lot of them, Jordan is their ancestral homeland before the Hashemite dynasty took over in 1921.
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"A pessimist thinks things can't get any worse. An optimist knows they can."
Hamas has been able to recruit almost as many new fighters as Israel killed during its ferocious offensive on the Gaza Strip, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a farewell speech where he said that mediators were "on the brink" of a ceasefire.
Blinken’s remarks on Tuesday at The Atlantic Council in Washington DC provide a rare window into US intelligence assessments of Hamas’s strength, which is likely to ruffle Israel’s positioning after a potential ceasefire, given its stated objective of “total victory and the eradication of Hamas”.
Most Arab nations are terrified of letting Palestinians in because of what has happened in the past. They tried to overthrow the monarchy in Jordan, caused insurgencies in Lebanon, and formed terrorist groups that targeted the Egyptian government and civilians. Nobody wants to get involved in those hang ups. There is a reason why the border security between Gaza and Egypt is just as secure as the one between Gaza and Israel.
Palestinians, especially those in West Bank, actually have a decent claim to Jordan though. Many of them were pushed out by the Hashemites, a Saudi dynasty, into what is now the West Bank and Israel. For a lot of them, Jordan is their ancestral homeland before the Hashemite dynasty took over in 1921.
Right, I was more trying to highlight Trump’s green light for total ethnic cleansing.
