This is scary

[alvnv]

12 hours ago, Kostik said:

Do you understand Chinese? Speaks well and correctly!
And you are learning Chinese, when Coca-Cola will be sold for 5 yuan in New York, it will come in handy!

You should be learning Chinese as Russia is already becoming their client state. Wait until they take all the territories lost to Unequal Treaties - bye bye Khabarovsk and Vladivostok - maybe they will remain it to Vladiputinsass.

[stevenkesslar]

On 11/4/2023 at 11:08 PM, stevenkesslar said:

Thank you for being so precise about the tragic nature of the problem.

When Hamas kills 1500 or so Israelis, mostly women and kids, it is genocide.

When the IDF kills 9000 or so Palestinians, mostly women and kids, of course it is only and exactly what Israel needs to do to survive.  That's all.

If the IDF kills 90,000 Palestinians by the time it is done, that's just survival, too.  Duh!

If the IDF kills 900,000 Palestinians by the time it is done eradicating Hamas, that's just survival, too.  Is there a problem?

 

19 hours ago, EmmetK said:

There is ZERO moral equivalence, ZERO!, between what Hamas did and what Israel is doing.

I agree with your point.   And you completely missed my point.  Which is no surprise.  It's exactly why the tragedy will continue, and get worse.   

The good news right now is most Americans don't see it that way.  They favor a ceasefire.

Your point is that there is no moral equivalence between "Hamas" and "Israel."  I completely agree.  And I am being very precise here.  Israel is a sovereign democratic nation that has every right to exist and thrive.  Israel is not a terrorist nation.  So I didn't equate "Hamas" and "Israel" in any way.  What I think is particularly important right now is that there can be no moral equivalence about the fact that Israel has the right to exist.  Jews have the right to exist, peacefully and securely, wherever they choose to live. And neither Jews nor Israel are terrorist thugs or organizations.  Which is what Hamas is.  If I believed any of that, I would simply say Israel is a terrorist state.  I don't.

My point is the word "genocide" - as in genocide against Jews - is being used to rationalize massive violence in Gaza by IDF that is already causing a strong and growing reaction around the world.  This violence can also appropriately be called "genocide" - as in genocide against Palestinians.  The more neutral word being used a lot to rationalize this violence is "security", which was used again and again and again in that IDF military analyst's article I posted above.  The less neutral way to say it, which I have read again and again and again recently in articles written by right-of-center Jews, is "Holocaust" or "Never Again." 

Whether you use less provocative words like "security" or more provocative words like "Holocaust," the basic idea is the same.  And you have expressed your support for it, @EmmetK, continuously.  Do whatever it takes.  If it takes killing 9,000 Palestinians, that's just what it takes.  In fact, that has already been done.  And the IDF is clearly just getting started.  If it takes killing 90,000 Palestinians, that's just what it takes.  If it takes killing 900,000 Palestinians, well, that's what it takes.  Shit, they had every right to go to Puerto Vallarta or Michigan or somewhere, right?  They were warned.

Why is it is genocide to kill 1,500 innocent Jews, but not genocide to kill tens or hundreds of thousands of Palestinians?  Because Hamas is made up of genocidal monsters, of course.  So pretty much anything the IDF has to do to have security from Hamas, which is what really matters, is okay.  It's not that they actually want to kill 9,000 or 90,000 or 900,000 Palestinians, most of whom are innocent, women, and children.  It's just what they have to do for security.  We can't have another Holocaust, can we?

That's the Idea.  It is stated clear as day by IDF leaders or analysts like I cited above.  And by lots of center-right Jews writing in lots of Western publications.  The polls suggest this kind of black and white one-sided thinking is not really going down well.  Including with the majority of Americans.  The world, and the US, and Biden, have Israel's back.  But not to do whatever it takes.

Bibi Netanyahu is a genocidal monster.  I have said that many times, and I just said it again.  Netanyahu, who is a genocidal monster, is not Israel.  He is not Jews.  He is a very bad leader who is supported by a growing right-wing base.  Which is partly why the violence and the deaths on both sides will likely get worse.  What has clearly been happening for most of this century is that the more genocidal Hamas gets, the more genocidal Bibi gets.  They are like two genocidal monsters playing in a bloodbath together. And as they get more and more genocidal, there is more blood. And more innocent victims on both sides. 

The pattern, and the blood, is incredibly clear.  You just don't want to see it.  Or, more appropriately, you only want to see some of it.

I am glad the majority of Americans want a ceasefire.  And I am glad Biden is getting more and more shit from mainstream members of his own party.  Who I am pretty sure are hearing from lots of their constituents who don't like what they see.

19 hours ago, EmmetK said:

If you have any evidence of the IDF ripping open the bellies of pregnant Palestinian women and throwing the babies into ovens, please share it.

‘A curse to be a parent in Gaza’: More than 3,600 Palestinian children killed in just 3 weeks of war

Quote

“When houses are destroyed, they collapse on the heads of children,” writer Adam al-Madhoun said Wednesday as he comforted his 4-year-old daughter Kenzi at the Al Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in the central Gaza city of Deir al-Balah. She survived an airstrike that ripped off her right arm, crushed her left leg and fractured her skull.

I know in your black and white world where it is all about one thing - "security" for Israel - it is just unfortunate that an entire innocent family had their brains, eyes, hearts, lungs, penises, vaginas, and pretty much everything else that made them a living human blown up into scraps of rotting flesh under rubble.   

And, no, the IDF is not like Hamas.  It's not like they specifically wanted to blow up a whole family.  I mean, what are ya gonna do?  I'm sure they sent out leaflets or something, before they shut off the power and internet.  If Hamas puts a bullet in your brain, it's genocide.  If the IDF blows up the brains of every member of your family, it's just a mistake. That's clear, right?

19 hours ago, EmmetK said:

Israel is targeting the terrorist butchers. They have given all civilians notices by test, phone calls, and dropping leaflets to warn them in advance to evacuate the area. If civilians ignore the warnings, that is their choice.

Israeli Army Admits to Killing Eight Gaza Family Members: We Thought the House Was Empty

Most of the world does not seem to see it as that black and white.  Sorry.  I'm especially sorry for all the dead Jews and Palestinians, thanks to genocidal monsters like Hamas and Netanyahu.

[forky123]

The overuse of the word genocide will eventually dilute its meaning.

[stevenkesslar]

15 hours ago, KeepItReal said:

You may find thus article interesting.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/george-hw-bush-israel-palestinians-progressives_n_60a6d388e4b0a25683107530

I did.  Great point.

The even bigger kudos Bush 41 gets is what is known as the "Powell Doctrine,"  aka how we won the first Gulf War.  Have clear and winnable objectives.  Get in and get out.  Have the backs of your own soldiers.  During the debate on the second Iraq War, I kept a newspaper clipping of Bush 41's reasons for not going into Baghdad in my wallet.  I pulled it out when my Republican friends went off about WMD.  Bush 41 stated his reasons (it would create a quagmire, divide the US and the world, etc.)  because he was attacked by right-wingers who thought he should have pushed further.  Every single point Bush 41 made about what would have gone wrong on his watch did go wrong on his son's watch.

I hope something like the Powell Doctrine is what the IDF does in Gaza.  So far, unfortunately,  it looks more like Bush 43 on steroids, in Iraq.  It looks like the Netanyahu Doctrine.

This is a really tangential point.  I just watched a one hour interview with Bush 43 at some conference, giving his still very hardline views on what's going on now.  He talked, movingly, about how much it meant to him to have his Dad on the phone when the son was POTUS telling him something like, "I support you."  I was thinking about the fact that Bush 41 never would have done, and specifically did not do, what Bush 43 did in Iraq.  And yet, whatever reservations Bush 41 may have had, he told his son what his son needed to hear: "I support you."  George H.W. Bush was a good man, and a good Dad.

[stevenkesslar]

10 minutes ago, forky123 said:

The overuse of the word genocide will eventually dilute its meaning.

I just used it, repeatedly.  And I have admitted to smoking, but not inhaling.

I agree.  The more inflamed the situation gets, the less useful the word "genocide" seems to be in this context.  

John Mearsheimer called the Nazis "Murder Incorporated."  But "Genocide Incorporated" would have been an equally good label.  I don't think Hamas killing 1500 Jews in a savage terrorist attack or the IDF killing, so far, 9000 Palestinians in their invasion is "genocide."  

I get that Hamas promotes a hateful ideology that denies Israel's right to exist.  I get that many, maybe most Palestinians, feel Israeli Jews want to deny their right to exist as a nation, and force them to instead live in an apartheid state.  All of this is awful.  To me, "genocide" is not the right word.

The reason I'm been using it is that if hawks want to throw around the word "genocide" to rationalize "whatever it takes" I think the consistent actions of leaders like Netanyahu, which have resulted in far more deaths of innocents, deserve the same label.

It's a mess.  Even on a personal psychological level, I think it's just a big fucking mess.  My sense on a level of empathy is that this terrorism has triggered the worst fears of the even the kindest, most peace loving Jews.  So on an emotional level I think I get where at least some of the primal fear about "genocide" is coming from.  Which is why I am glad Biden went to Israel and hugged Bibi, symbolically.  Even though I think Bibi is .......... wait for it ............ a genocidal monster.  🙄

It's barely related.  But just because I admire her I will throw in this great interview I just read of Dame Margaret Hodge, who is the only female Jewish Labour MP in the UK.  If we are talking about language, I think she is a class act who has a very nice and humane way of talking and thinking about things.  She was like a moral compass when all the drama with Jeremy Corbyn, who she despises, was happening.  Now she is talking about the stuff happening with her Jewish grand daughters in school.  I wish more people thought and felt like her.

[Moses]

5 hours ago, alvnv said:

Who do you think gets punished because of the war that Vovka Putin started?

Looks like you haven't answer why Israel bombing Palestine and now trying to switch to Ukrainian conflict?

[forky123]

2 hours ago, stevenkesslar said:

t's barely related.  But just because I admire her I will throw in this great interview I just read of Dame Margaret Hodge, who is the only female Jewish Labour MP in the UK.

Not the only one, there is also Charlotte Nichols MP

[alvnv]

6 hours ago, Moses said:

Looks like you haven't answer why Israel bombing Palestine and now trying to switch to Ukrainian conflict?

I know that, in true Russian fashion, you pick and chose arguments that fit your narrative in a given moment, but you were the one, just yesterday, comparing Israel and Palestine to Ukraine and Russia, so there…

As far as the events in Gaza are concerned, I believe that the Israeli response is disproportionate. I am against Israeli policies towards Palestinians, but strongly believe in Israel’s right to exist. Stupidity and brutality of Hamas (much like that of Putin’s regime, in general) played right into Bibi’s and Likud’s right-wing ambitions. The devastating attack on October 7 all but gave them Carte Blanche to act on these ambitions. Add to that the abundance of emotions that clouds the common sense on both sides and it brings us to extended conflict that has no winners in the end.

[Moses]

1 hour ago, alvnv said:

but strongly believe in Israel’s right to exist

The problem is what Israel and Palestine should be established at the same time based on the same UN decision. And Israel has been established and since first own day does everything for to suppress establishment of Palestine.

[forky123]

One thing that should not be lost in all this is that Hamas are still holding over 200 hostages including children. I'm against the war but if it were my children were being held hostage, I can't say I wouldn't tear Palestine to its foundations and kill everyone that got in the way looking for them. 

[Marc in Calif]

1 hour ago, forky123 said:

One thing that should not be lost in all this is that Hamas are still holding over 200 hostages including children. I'm against the war but if it were my children were being held hostage, I can't say I wouldn't tear Palestine to its foundations and kill everyone that got in the way looking for them. 

I'm so glad you're not in a position to make decisions that potentially kill innocent civilians -- including children. 🙈

The indiscrimate killing of civilians is a war crime, but we all know that Israel doesn't like following international law. Some people actually respect Israel for being an outlaw. 

[Latbear4blk]

4 hours ago, forky123 said:

One thing that should not be lost in all this is that Hamas are still holding over 200 hostages including children. I'm against the war but if it were my children were being held hostage, I can't say I wouldn't tear Palestine to its foundations and kill everyone that got in the way looking for them. 

So you would kill innocent people? Tens of thousands of them?

[stevenkesslar]

13 hours ago, stevenkesslar said:

It's barely related.  But just because I admire her I will throw in this great interview I just read of Dame Margaret Hodge, who is the only female Jewish Labour MP in the UK

 

11 hours ago, forky123 said:

Not the only one, there is also Charlotte Nichols MP

You are correct. 

I know this is a tangent.  But you and I both care about facts.

I got what I said from what Hodge herself said in the interview I hyperlinked.

Quote

On the political level, it’s a mix. When it all blew, we were at Labour Party Conference. I’m the only Jewish woman. I’m the only Jewish woman left, Labour MP, and there are three Jewish male Labour MPs, but they’re much more reluctant to say anything publicly. They don’t really do a lot about their identity in their politics, whereas I do because that role has been put upon me because of the antisemitism.

But I checked Wikipedia and you are correct.

Quote

Nichols grew up in a mostly secular Catholic family with some Irish heritage. At the age of 22, Nichols started attending weekly services at the Manchester Reform Synagogue; after attending the services she claimed to have felt more peace than she ever had growing up as a Catholic.^[25] She converted to Judaism in 2014 and celebrated her bat mitzvah on her 27th birthday.^[26]

Since converting to Judaism, Nichols has faced ongoing abuse for her beliefs, including anti-Semitism from a Conservative Party council candidate for the 2021 Warrington Borough Council election. The candidate sent a message via Twitter to Nichols saying “Keep the Aryan race going”.^[27]

This personal stuff is relevant to the big picture politics, I think.  I have two impulses in me that are slightly at war.  First, we have to have Israel's back.  Second, it's not okay for Israel to do whatever it takes.  And it definitely goes in that order.  I suspect if I were younger, in my 20's, I might feel the same way, but the other way around.

John Della Volpe just wrote a piece in the NYT that should scare the living shit out of everyone who does not want Trump, The Sequel.  When it comes to polling on the youth vote, he is the go to go guy.  Period.  He predicted that Biden would ride a youth wave in 2020.  Biden did.  Now the headline says it all:  "Biden is in trouble."  Part of his point is that how young people feel about a ceasefire, and how Biden is rejecting an idea a majority of even Republicans seem to support, has just made a bad situation worse for Biden. Della Volpe is Mr. Polling.  So I think he is factually correct when he argues this:

Quote

To be sure, most young voters who seek a cease-fire do not condone the barbaric acts of Hamas. But according to recent polling from CBS News, younger Americans are more likely than older generations to have roughly equal levels of sympathy for the Israeli people and the Palestinian people. At the same time, at this stage, a majority of Gen Zers and millennials believe that U.S. support for Israel makes the Middle East more dangerous.

Back to Hodge, in that interview she reflects on being a young woman spending months on a kibbutz where they toiled the soil all day and then talked about Rosseau and Marx in the evenings.  I'm not a Jew, and I have never been to Israel.  But that is the Israel I have in my heart.  Which I suspect Joe Biden does, too.

She jokes in that article that every attempt to turn her into a proper practicing Jew failed, until Corbyn came along.  She also says she grew up surrounded by Jewish refugees.  Her point is that while she may not have been a practicing Jew, she is very much culturally a Jew.  Charlotte Nichols sounds like the opposite.  A cultural Catholic who grew up Catholic, like me, but has a deep respect for Judaism.

On a personal note, part of my bias is that as an organizer/activist my life has been full of liberal Jewish political activists.  The one who for sure played the most important role was my friend, college professor, and former US Senator Paul Wellstone.  He steered me into the career I had in my 20's and 30's and got me my first internship.  He was a lot like what Hodge sounds like.  Always looking out for the disempowered.  Always passionate about social justice.  He also thought Israel treated the Palestinians like shit.  And that was in the 80's and 90's, before the rise of horrible leaders like Netanyahu, who Bill Clinton argues killed peace.  I'll keep insisting that back in the 80's and 90's, Arafat was the primary suspect who killed peace.  

Kudos to Hodge and Nichols for being voices of conscience.

[stevenkesslar]

7 hours ago, forky123 said:

One thing that should not be lost in all this is that Hamas are still holding over 200 hostages including children. I'm against the war but if it were my children were being held hostage, I can't say I wouldn't tear Palestine to its foundations and kill everyone that got in the way looking for them. 

Hamas has said about 50 hostages so far have been killed by Israeli air strikes in Gaza.  Whatever the actual number is, or ends up being, this was clearly intentional.  You try to wipe us out, and you will kill innocent Jewish hostages instead. 

It's just as clear that Hamas uses innocent Palestinians as human shields.  In fact, all of Gaza is both a massive open air prison, and a massive human shield. 

But so what?  That's been the nature of the situation for about 15 years.  There's all kinds of evidence that Netanyahu mostly saw it as a positive.  Because it discredited the idea that we can ever have peace with Palestinians.  Polls now say only 32 % of Israeli Jews favor a two state solution.  And that was right BEFORE Oct. 7th.  Which is an exact reversal from pre-Netanyahu days, when a majority of Israeli Jews favored a two state solution.   In a sick, dark sort of way you could argue Bibi the monster won the debate.

9 hours ago, alvnv said:

Stupidity and brutality of Hamas (much like that of Putin’s regime, in general) played right into Bibi’s and Likud’s right-wing ambitions.

I emphatically agree with the brutality part.  I strongly disagree with the stupidity part.  I'll add a third important word:  hypocrisy.

I argued above that you can view Israel as a winner.  They have secured land, and settled more of it.  You can argue Palestinians are the losers, in that they live more and more in an apartheid state with no hope of a nation of their own. 

But, by the same logic, Hamas has won, too.  As an objective fact, compare Hamas to 20 or 30 years ago and they are much stronger.  They nominally run a nation.  Even though of course Israel can and did cut off electricity and water and invade as they wish.  Hamas clearly had a plan on Oct. 7th.  It clearly seems to be working.  I don't think Hamas played right into Bibi's ambition.  I think Bibi took their bait.  He's the one the polls say is now discredited, even among many of his own followers.  Hamas organized Oct. 7th in a way that Bibi of course had no choice but to retaliate. 

Their taking of hostages, and putting them in tunnels and other hideouts, precisely anticipated the IDF response.  That was the whole idea.  You can call it evil.  You can call it brutal.  But I don't think you can call it stupid.

There is this idea that I keep reading that somehow, someway, the IDF will "eradicate" Hamas.  Being a verbose guy, I read lots of verbose essays by right of center IDF guys or conservative Jewish commentators.  And no one has a clue how to eradicate Hamas. 

I'd argue "eradicate Hamas" is about as helpful as "from the river to the sea" as a Palestinian bumper sticker.  If it makes you feel good, great.  But as a political or military strategy, it makes 0 % sense.  And on a practical level the bumper stickers basically are just inflaming and polarizing people on both sides who are already very hurt and very pissed.

So you might say it is kind of stupid to say our plan is to eradicate Hamas when no one knows how to actually do it.  And the history for 20 or 30 years says that Hamas prospers and grows in an environment of war. 

You could call Hamas "War Incorporated."  Or I'd be okay with calling Hamas "Genocide Incorporated".  They'd love the label.  In that they intentionally deny Israel's right to exist, and use it to motivate pissed off Palestinian youth.  It seems 1000 % clear that is an intentional strategy.  And it is working.  If you want more Hamas, you absolutely want to have more war.  The more blood, the better.  Hamas knows that.  They're brutal.  But not stupid.

The hypocrisy part is that even if Netanyahu is gone in a month or a year, the growing force behind him - ultra-Orthodox Jews - will find someone else who is probably worse.  As a part of a diverse democratic nation, they are the voters that are most helping to polarize the situation and block any hope of peace.  And they are the ones that least want to fight the resulting war, which is a mandatory requirement. 

In several decades ultra-Orthodox Jews, now 13 %, will be 30 % or so of the voting population.  It's a good guess they will press for things that lead to more war.  And more political pressure to exempt ultra-Orthodox Jewish men from war.  Which will further destabilize Israeli democracy.  The two parts of Israel growing the fastest are Palestinians, and ultra-Orthodox Jews.  Hamas seems to understand this very well. 

The plan to eradicate Hamas does not include a plan to actually eradicate Hamas.  Meanwhile, Hamas sees how to spend decades building a path to power paved in blood and rotting flesh.  Which is what they have done, successfully, for decades.  That's brutal.  But not stupid.

I'll revisit the comparison I made between America's 9/11 and Israel's 9/11.  Because I do think America mostly won.  And I fear Israel will mostly lose. 

America won in the sense that there has not been another 9/11.  And any political force like the Taliban knows that if you fuck with us like that again, you either end up living in a cave or being fish food at the bottom of an ocean.  Even if you assume we Americans wrecked many lives and some real estate in Afghanistan, we were not fighting a war in the US, or Manhattan.  Even if you assume the US did horrible shit, it was horrible shit we did far away that we could walk away from.  Bin Laden's specific goal was to use a reaction against the US to catalyze revolution in the Arab world.  What he won was a bullet in the head, and an opportunity to feed fish.

Arguably, the US should have walked away from Afghanistan much earlier and said we'll leave your mess to you.  And you can abuse women and treat them like slaves as much as you want.  But just leave us the fuck alone, or we will come back and kill you.  We have never had anything like another 9/11 since 9/11.  Thanks in large part to the effective counterterrorism efforts of the US military and our global allies.

I think the Netanyahu Doctrine was built on similar principles and ideas.  Except it is not working.  And it can't work, for lots of reasons.  But the biggest one I will state is that it would be as if we did plan to fight the war on US soil, and blow the shit out of Manhattan.  Or at least Brooklyn.  And the cowboys in Texas would be saying, "We need to turn Brooklyn into a parking lot, and go house to house and tunnel to tunnel and wipe those evil fuckers out.  But we don't want to help do it." 

That's just not going to work.  No one in the IDF, and no right wing Jew who wants Israel to be secure, can explain how they will do it.  Because they can't.

Hamas understands all this.  And has weaponized it in an incredibly brutal way.  That is not stupid.

If I wanted to argue the US lost in Afghanistan, I would argue it the same way.  We lost in the sense that the Taliban could, and did, outwait us for a few decades.  And they used US soldiers, who they killed as often as possible, as the bad guys to organize and regroup.  Hamas will do the same.  The black and white difference is the US was not in it mostly to make Afghanistan a democracy and a nice place for girls.  The US was in it mostly to secure the US homeland.  And a peaceful international order free of extremist whack jobs blowing up skyscrapers or wiping out large numbers of innocent civilians all over the world.  Which is why we had so many good allies.  On balance, I think the US did that. 

Israel is in a very different situation.  The only thing that will ultimately secure a peaceful national order there is a two state solution.  The world believes that.  Israelis Jews used to believe that.  Now they don't.  So, instead, they will have war.  Basically on their own soil, or five feet away.

 

 

[alvnv]

8 hours ago, Moses said:

The problem is what Israel and Palestine should be established at the same time based on the same UN decision. And Israel has been established and since first own day does everything for to suppress establishment of Palestine.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Partition_Plan_for_Palestine

[forky123]

7 hours ago, Latbear4blk said:

So you would kill innocent people? Tens of thousands of them?

One day people here will actually read what is written and not just jump on things without reading them properly.

 

12 hours ago, forky123 said:

I can't say I wouldn't tear Palestine to its foundations and kill everyone that got in the way looking for them. 

I am so lucky not to be in a situation where I had children missing and so do not have to make a decision like that. Let's put this another way. If your children were missing you'd just leave them there and go have more instead?

[reader]

On 11/5/2023 at 8:56 AM, vinapu said:

You got that right, first I'd change in USA is look of their paper money, it's so outdated , old fashioned and distanced from modernity that even Maldives and yes , Nicaragua  have much modern currency than issuer if supposedly strongest one.

There’s reasons why the US currency may initially appear “outdated” . First, the paper itself has been manufactured by a sole supplier (Crane Currency) since 1879. It has a unique feel that gives it a familiar tactile quality expected from users. But changed it has over the years with a host of embedded features that enable buyers to determine its authenticity on the spot.

If you go, for example, to the popular X-One exchange on Surawong or any Super Rich branch, it can be rapidly deterred if all the anti-counterfeit features are present in the proffered note. 

Crane also manufactures currency for other central banks around the world.

[Latbear4blk]

7 hours ago, forky123 said:

One day people here will actually read what is written and not just jump on things without reading them properly.

 

I am so lucky not to be in a situation where I had children missing and so do not have to make a decision like that. Let's put this another way. If your children were missing you'd just leave them there and go have more instead?

Sure. You are insinuating that you would kill innocents to rescue your loved ones, and I have a reading and comprehension problem.

To answer your question, I would use any possible resource to save my loved ones, as long as I respect the law and human lives. I would have no oral ground if I replicate the behavior of the terrorists. 

I am confident you would not murder and bulldoze your White neighbors to save your children, but of course, Palestinians do not deserve the same compassion than nice White people do.

[forky123]

59 minutes ago, Latbear4blk said:

Sure. You are insinuating that you would kill innocents to rescue your loved ones, and I have a reading and comprehension problem.

To answer your question, I would use any possible resource to save my loved ones, as long as I respect the law and human lives. I would have no oral ground if I replicate the behavior of the terrorists. 

I am confident you would not murder and bulldoze your White neighbors to save your children, but of course, Palestinians do not deserve the same compassion than nice White people do.

Again once again completely missing the point. I am saying that I cannot say I wouldn't kill people who kidnapped my family or people that got in the way of any rescue. I'm not in that position though and neither are you so your insistance that you would respect the law and human life is simply not valid until you are actually in the position to have to choose. As for bringing race into it, that's pretty pathetic. You don't get to choose who kidnaps your family. 

[EmmetK]

1 hour ago, Latbear4blk said:

Sure. You are insinuating that you would kill innocents to rescue your loved ones, and I have a reading and comprehension problem.

To answer your question, I would use any possible resource to save my loved ones, as long as I respect the law and human lives. I would have no oral ground if I replicate the behavior of the terrorists. 

I am confident you would not murder and bulldoze your White neighbors to save your children, but of course, Palestinians do not deserve the same compassion than nice White people do.

Unlike the Hamas Nazis, the IDF doesn't target civilians. If they did, it would be 90,000 killed. Not 9000.
Israel is targeting the Hamas Nazis that crossed into Israel, butchered, raped, tortured unarmed innocents, took 240 hostages and fled back into Gaza.
Hamas soldiers hide in hospitals, schools, camps, UN buildings, etc. Those civilians have been warned to flee those areas. No country would stand back, or pause, or allow a cease fire so to allow their enemies to re-group and re-arm.
Every Gazan civilian death is 100% attributable to the Hamas leaders they elected.
Until Hamas surrenders, there will be many more Gazan civilians that will die. And you can thank Hamas for each dead body.

As for you injecting race into the equation, Israel is the most heterogenous nation in the area. It is more than 60% non-white, including millions from their racist Arab neighbors whose anti-Semitic laws caused them to flee to Israel for their freedom.

[Latbear4blk]

LOL. Yeah, pathetic is a nice adjective to describe the attempts to justify genocidal actions.

[EmmetK]

38 minutes ago, Latbear4blk said:

LOL. Yeah, pathetic is a nice adjective to describe the attempts to justify genocidal actions.

The only one committing genocide in the middle east is HAMAS.

[vinapu]

11 hours ago, EmmetK said:

Every Gazan civilian death is 100% attributable to the Hamas leaders they elected.

No doubt Hamas has or at least had support of big chunk of Gazans but I wouldn't place too much faith in election process there to put it mildly. Election when population is terrorized are not the same like we have in the West.

Would you blame North Koreans, Cubans or Equatorial Guineans for faults of  leaders "they elected"?

[vinapu]

11 hours ago, Latbear4blk said:

LOL. Yeah, pathetic is a nice adjective to describe the attempts to justify genocidal actions.

11 hours ago, EmmetK said:

The only one committing genocide in the middle east is HAMAS.

as somebody already remarked , liberal using of word ' genocide ' dilutes it meaning

[stevenkesslar]

On 11/6/2023 at 5:16 PM, stevenkesslar said:

Israel is in a very different situation.  The only thing that will ultimately secure a peaceful national order there is a two state solution.  The world believes that.  Israelis Jews used to believe that.  Now they don't.

Well, at least some Israeli Jews still think this way.  Blessed are the peacemakers.

Former Israeli Prime Minister: Israel’s Endgame in Gaza Should be a Palestinian State

 

I vastly prefer Barak's concept of "security" to the one being throw around by the conservatives who want to turn Gaza, and countless innocent Gazans, into a parking lot.

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The right way is to look to the two-state solution, not because of justice to the Palestinians, which is not the uppermost on my priorities, but because we have a compelling imperative to disengage from the Palestinians to protect our own security, our own future, our own identity. 

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If there is only one political entity reigning over this whole area between the Mediterranean and the Jordan River, it will inevitably become either non-Jewish or non-democratic. If this bloc of millions of Palestinians can vote, Israel will become overnight a binational state, and within a short time, historically speaking, a binational state with a Muslim majority. That's not the Zionist dream. If they cannot vote, permanently, this is not a democracy. But the present government, and probably a little bit more than the majority of the Israeli people, believes in a one-state solution, which I think is a very bad solution. 

The interesting thing is that as one of Israel's most decorated warriors and long serving Defense Ministers, Barak would probably make a way more effective warmonger than Bibi, the great Hamas builder.  Instead, perhaps because he is such a good warrior, Barak has always been a sober realist.  He's right that Israel won't have security, or even democracy, in the long run if it stays on the path that it is on. 

It's also noteworthy that Barak says about as bluntly as any Israeli leader has that Bibi intentionally elevated Hamas.  So he could have a bad guy to play off Fatah in orderto discredit the idea of negotiation and a two state solution. 

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What’s the reason for this? If you have the vision of one state and your main political objective is to block any potential two-state solution, keeping Hamas alive and kicking serves you. ... So this situation served Netanyahu, it served his vision, it served his long-term strategy.

So for @EmmetK and others who want to make it about only one thing - how Hamas cuts open the bellies of pregnant women and burns their babies alive - I have a question.  What is the price Bibi should pay for being the father and framer of these evil men who slit open the bellies of pregnant women?  Why did Bibi empower them and facilitate their growth?   Is there some special part of hell he gets to burn in for misleading Israel for a generation?  Or is it okay that he is the spiritual and political father of the baby killers?

Barak is sober that Israeli Jews, right after Oct. 7th, are hardly going to rush toward peace.  But he is also right that Israel absolutely needs partners in the region and the world.  He just said in a Politico article that maybe the IDF has a few weeks before the pressure from Europeans and Americans forces Israel to change course.  I hope he is right.  

Israel has only weeks to defeat Hamas as global opinion sours, former PM Ehud Barak says

There's something else Barak said in that interview that I'll quote.  It's a very important principle that I think most of the world. including most people like me who want a ceasefire, also agree with:

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Barak said Israel rightly set the bar high in its Gaza war aim. “The shock of the attack was huge. This was an unprecedented event in our history, and it was immediately clear that there had to be a tough response. Not in order to take revenge, but to make sure that it cannot happen ever again.”

Arguably, Israel has already been tough enough.  But the reason I think that is so well stated is that the goal of making sure it never happens again is way more realistic, and probably way more effective, than the idea that Israel will somehow "eradicate Hamas."  Eradication, regardless of how many innocent people to have die, is simply vengeful.  More important, it is simply an impossible right wing fantasy.  The entire history of this conflict is that Israel won security first and foremost through politics, diplomacy, negotiation, and creating as stable an order around itself as it could.  And then they fought wars, too.  Barak, who was Defense Minister for many years, seems to understand the bigger moral, political, and diplomatic picture of what really being able to say "never again" means.  It is not only, or even primarily, a military problem.

If there actually were a realistic plan to "eradicate" Hamas, Barak would be one of the most capable people to design it.  He talks in that interview about how he has thought about it before.  He also talks about how such a military operation in Gaza would take "many months, or a few years."  Way longer than Israelis expect, he thinks.  And that how long it might take would be impossible to guess before they got deeply into it.  So many tunnels, so much time.  The casualties would be tremendous, he says.

But the other thing Barak says that will stop the IDF is he knows as well as anyone that [name an Arab country, or another Palestinian leader] could say, "Sorry, Israel.  You broke Gaza, so you bought it."  Which Mubarak did basically tell Barak before, when he tried to get Egypt to take over the mess.  One of the cruelest things about this situation to me is that Israel is obviously the warden of this hellish open air prison.  Even though it wants to pretend it isn't.  So if Israel wants Arab countries, or Abbas, to help scoop up the rotting flesh of innocent women and children once the bombing stops, they are going to have to negotiate and compromise. 

Barak knows all this.  And Bibi probably does, too.  Which is why Bibi needed to be the spiritual and political father of the guys who slit pregnant women open and burn their babies alive.  What a guy!

Americans have seen this movie before, of course.  And we know that it often ends tragically.  We were the ones with the bright idea of arming and elevating the Taliban, when it served our interests.  To our credit, at least we knew they didn't live five feet away from us.  What's Bibi's excuse?