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Jatrain

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Posts posted by Jatrain

  1. 11 minutes ago, bolverk said:

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    The suspense for the follow-up is killing me.

     

    Thanks for this and fuck Maggie Habermann.  She’s complicit in the national nightmare that is Trump

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  2. 9 hours ago, Slacks said:

    I didn't have the law in front of me, but I bet proving the intent to subvert / interfere with the election is not easy.

    Jesus Fucking Christ.  Just try to keep up a little man. 

  3. 34 minutes ago, Js1 said:

    Arizona is going blue now.

    And 2 of the justices are up in November in retention elections ("do you want to keep this judge or force an election?") 

    Yep, they already have enough signatures to put it (referendum) on the November ballot and will keep going.  Should really help Gallegos and Biden x  

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  4. 32 minutes ago, NotActuallyALonghorn said:

    I saw something about a Halas target falling in briefly with the convoy or something like that. Good luck finding any info about it  now. I tried, but couldn't. 

    That’s a trial balloon that didn’t work.

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  5. 3 hours ago, statsman said:

    I don’t disagree with you. And Israel is not using it that way. 
     

    They’re not?  President Biden in his SOTU seemed to imply they are.

     

  6. 6 hours ago, sheeeit said:

    there is context here that is very important.  I actually think you bringing that up is the one being disingenuous.
     

    I may not have my dates exactly right but Israel vacated Gaza and turned it over to the Palestinians in 2005.  Initially, there were no restrictions on trade. Within the first six months of taking control, over 1000 rockets were fired into Israel from Gaza.  1000. Even then the Israelis did not restrict trade. Additionally, there were several suicide bomb terrorist attacks, as well as a tunnel attack on Israel from Gaza. It wasn’t until Hamas became the elected leader of Gaza that Israel really started to take control.

    And, the thing that nobody really seems to talk about that much, Egypt also imposed the same kinds of restrictions on the flow of goods into Gaza.  
     

     

    “Israel claims it no longer occupies the Gaza Strip, maintaining that it is neither a State nor a territory occupied or controlled by Israel, but rather it has 'sui generis' status. Pursuant to the Disengagement Plan, Israel dismantled all military institutions and settlements in Gaza and there is no longer a permanent Israeli military or civilian presence in the territory. However, the Plan also provided that Israel will guard and monitor the external land perimeter of the Gaza Strip, will continue to maintain exclusive authority in Gaza air space, and will continue to exercise security activity in the sea off the coast of the Gaza Strip as well as maintaining an Israeli military presence on the Egyptian-Gaza border, and reserving the right to reenter Gaza at will. Israel continues to control six of Gaza's seven land crossings, its maritime borders and airspace and the movement of goods and persons in and out of the territory. Egypt controls one of Gaza's land crossings. Gaza is also dependent on Israel for water, electricity, telecommunications and other utilities, currency, issuing IDs, and permits to enter and leave the territory. Israel also has sole control of the Palestinian Population Registry through which the Israeli Army regulates who is classified as a Palestinian and who is a Gazan or West Banker. Since 2000 aside from a limited number of exceptions Israel has refused to add people to the Palestinian Population Registry. It is this direct external control over Gaza and indirect control over life within Gaza that has led the United Nations, the UN General Assembly, the UN Fact Finding Mission to Gaza, International human rights organisations, US Government websites, the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office and a significant number of legal commentators, to reject the argument that Gaza is no longer occupied”.


    Sanger, Andrew (2011). "The Contemporary Law of Blockade and the Gaza Freedom Flotilla". In M.N. Schmitt; Louise Arimatsu; Tim McCormack (eds.). Yearbook of International Humanitarian Law - 2010. Vol. 13. Springer Science & Business Media. p. 429

     

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  7. 3 hours ago, Smax said:

     

     

    I may be wrong but I read that no one from the Palestinian side has stepped up and offered to take control of the borders, food, water, electricity, etc, As far as I know, hamas has never offered to do any of this and they received 100's of  millions of dollars a year in funding from Arab nations. They buy weapons and build tunnels instead

    Water allocation in Israel, the West Bank and Gaza was negotiated in the Oslo 2 accords.  However:

    1.)  According to the World Bank, despite being allocated 4 times as much water from the Mountain Aquifer (the primary water source for the West Bank), the Israeli’s have extracted over 80% more than their negotiated allotment.  Palestinian use has fallen year over year as they’ve been only able to sink less than half of their allowed well capacity.  Israel forbids Palestinians to sink wells in the West Bank (but allows settlers to do so).  West Bank Palestinians are denied any water from the Jordan River, the Sea of Galilee and other local rivers as Israeli diverts it before it reaches the West Bank. In total, 80-85% of the usable water in the West Bank is reserved for settlers and Israeli farming or diverted into Israel. (Cites available upon request)
     

    2.) Gaza’s only groundwater source is the Coastal Aquifer.  However, Israeli has install a series of wells along the border and captures much of this water before it flows into Gaza.  They then turn around and sell this water to Gaza.  The water that makes it to Gaza is highly contaminated and polluted and is barely drinkable.  Israeli forbids Palestinians from transporting water from the West Bank to Gaza.  

    3.)  There are a number of desalination plants but the Israeli blockade makes procurement of chemicals and spare parts difficult. Of course who knows how many of those are still standing?  They’re might have been Hamas somewhere nearby. 
     

    4.) The Palestinian’s do attempt to control water policy within its borders.  The have water policy boards at both the National and municipal levels, however, it’s hard to implement water policy when your main sources of water are outside of your control and limited by another country.  (See 1 and 2).  

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  8. 3 hours ago, sheeeit said:

    There is a lot of truth in this.  I do think that the Biden admin is being a little flaky in this deal. BB may well be a complete piece of shit, but he told the US what he was going to do when they started this offensive and we supported him right up until the point that we seem to not be supporting him. I think the whole concept of a measured response is simply absurd. This is war for the Israelis. Either one weapon delivered to Israel is too many or there really should be no limit. Our government under any administration is so busy trying to appease every loud voice that we wind up pissing everyone off.
     

    as to a two state solution, it obviously sounds logical and the only sane thing to do from our perspective as Americans. From Israel’s perspective, they literally just tried it with Gaza, and it resulted in tens of thousands of missiles being shot into Israel, thousands of dead Israelis and tens of thousands of dead Palestinians. It was an absolute disaster by all accounts.  I can certainly understand why Israel does not want to try that again.
     

    As to BB,s popularity, I think those opinion polls are not very accurate. I don’t think anyone likes to see mass killing, but deep down I think the majority of Israel’s are OK with this war going on until Hamas is effectively neutered. The absolute horrificness of the Hamas attacks just steeled Israel to the point that they are not going to stop this time. I hope for everyone’s sake that it can be done quickly and then BB rides off into the sunset.

     

    It’s ingenuous to say that Israel literally tried a two state solution with Gaza.  Nothing about Gaza over the last twenty years even remotely approximates a functioning state - not when Israel controls its borders, food, water, electricity, etc, doesn’t allow it to engage in commerce with the rest of the world, controls the movement of its people into and out of it, etc.  

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  9. 42 minutes ago, Dbeasy said:

    I have a question for the posters in this thread. I noticed that NBC News every single day runs an extended segment on the evening news covering an Israeli tragedy human interest story related to the war. There is a story every single day. And it’s always extended segment. And it never is focused on Palestinians.  And just to light the match, the President of NBC News is Jewish. Is this something to be concerned about, or is it appropriate/fair? I realize there are hostages that never should be forgotten, so maybe that’s justification for it. 

    I don’t think that you can connect the fact that the pres of NBC is Jewish with the running of these segments.  
     

    But I think that imagining what the outcry would be if they were highlighting innocent Palestinians victims (say any of the thousands of children that have been killed) tells you all that you need to know.  

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  10. 7 hours ago, Anastasis said:

    Alan Dershowitz being floated by Netanyahu to represent Israel at ICJ. 

    Moving up in the world from Epstein.  

  11. Is Israel’s endgame in this coming into focus?

    (Israeli Finance Minister) Smotrich then suggested that the removal of around 90 percent of Gaza's residents would help achieve his goal. "If there are 100,000 or 200,000 Arabs in Gaza and not two million, the whole discourse about the day after will be different," he said…..

    Smotrich's comments are the latest in a growing list of troubling remarks by Israeli lawmakers to seemingly support expelling Gazans en masse out of the Strip in order to ensure Israel's security after the war.

  12. 6 hours ago, Nice Guy Eddie said:

    what is the failure rate of these pledges? 100%?

    During high school in my neck of the woods, a purity ring was basically a flashing neon sign that said, “this girls fucks!”

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  13. 1 hour ago, AnTiM said:

    I will be waiting to see if anyone has an idea about whether the time and money spent on building all the tunnels could have been better used to help the people who really needed it.  Not to mention who paid for it and apparently got it done without attracting much attention.

    Well, according to Ehud Barak at least some of the tunnels were built by Israel so you might start by asking your questions there.  

  14. 2 hours ago, statsman said:

    Dude. 
    You don’t know any Muslims, do you? 
     
    I recommend you get out more, outside your circle. 
     
     I don’t know about the Koran, but I do know about the Bible. I taught an adult Sunday School class I called “Least Loved Stories From the Bible”, looking at difficult passages, and one was 1 Samuel 16, where that prophet of God basically calls for ethnic cleansing (genocide, really) of the Amalekites. It’s horrific, and I think it horrified the Jewish rabbis of the 7th century BC, who felt compelled to include Ruth (the story of how a Moabite woman- functionally, akin to a modern Palestinian-became the grandmother of Israel’s greatest king) in the canon. 
     
    I don’t think your Koranic interpretations are helpful or illuminative. 

    “You must remember what Amalek has done to you, says our Holy Bible. 1 Samuel 15:3 ‘Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass’,"

    — Bibi Netanyahu, 10/29/23, using the Bible (Torah) to justify the killing of not only Hamas, but of the entire Palestinian people. 

     

     

  15. 3 hours ago, Neonmoon said:

    I will try to provide some clarification (at least in regards to this thread)

    No one supports Hamas. Most people don't support Israel's actions in Gaza, or even the West Bank. It is has been expressed throughout this thread. 

    Nothing justifies the death of innocent civilians. 

    There is one slight disagreement between parties in this thread, and generally, between anyone that falls on either side of the war. There is a tendency for Palestinians supporters to promote a false equivalency. I'm not saying I don't understand it. Innocent Palestinians are being killed in this war. It is horrible. I wish it wasn't happening. I say false equivalency because Hamas intentionally raped women to death. They intentionally decapitated children. They proudly did horrific things to innocent civilians. They filmed it, and proudly spread these videos. While Israel bombs killing women and children is also terrible. In my opinion, it is in no way equal to Hamas' actions. 

    Now, I've read the articles that state Israel knew it was killing civilians with their bombs. While incredibly sad, militaries bombing targets that may or may not have collateral damage is not new. That doesn't make it equivalent. They asked Palestinians to leave the area before they started their campaign. They set up corridors for them to leave the area after they started their campaign. They don't want to kill civilians. If they could wave a magic wand and not kill any civilians and only Hamas targets, they would. Hamas wants to kill civilians. That is the difference. And yes, it's a big difference. 

     

     

     

     

    I appreciate this post, but will quibble with one part of it.  If we are to solely focus on Hamas’s actions on October 7th (and up to now) and Israel’s reaction to that, as you have in your post, then yes I would agree that there would be a false equivalence.  

    But that focus fails to take into what has happened in the decades of occupation before 10/7.  IDF soldiers (and other Israeli security forces) have employed sexual violence, including rape, against Palestinian women (cites provided by request). According to the UN, an average of almost 1 child per week is killed by Israeli forces in the West Bank.  An additional 700 are arrested and detained, without trial. UNICEF details practices that are classified as “cruel, inhuman, or degrading” according to the Convention on the Rights of the Child and Convention Against Torture, both ratified by Israel and the PA.  

    I don’t think it’s a false equivalence to say that rape and murder/torture of children when performed by Hamas is bad and that rape and murder/torture of children when performed by Israeli forces is bad as well.  I don’t think one is “less bad” than another.  

    That being said, I don’t think that Hamas and Israeli are equal, despite their actions having some equivalence.  Hamas is a terrorist organization, Israel is a liberal democracy with the benefits (American $ and weapons) and responsibilities (to both their citizens and to their Palestinian subjects) that come along with being a member of world community.  Israel should be held to a higher standard than Hamas.

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  16. 20 minutes ago, Aqua Buddha said:

    Not anti-Semitic at all, right?  It's just about Israeli government policies or something.

    I don’t understand these posts.  No one denies there is antisemitism in this world, some perpetuated by Palestinians and their supporters.  Just like there is anti-palestian-ism (not sure what is the best world, Islamophobia feels to broad and Palestinians are a Semitic people), some perpetuated by Israeli’s and their supporters.  
     

    That there is antisemitism or anti-Palestinian-ism doesn’t excuse the horrific actions taken by both sides. 

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  17. On 12/2/2023 at 8:02 AM, 956 Worldwide said:

    There is zero equivalence between the IDF and Hamas/IJP.  The IDF has the capability and the current mandate to inflict violence on a larger scale. But don’t get twisted: for Hamas/IJP murder, rape, torture, kidnapping, and terror are not by-products, aberrations, or even means to an end. They are the end in and of themselves. 
     

    This is why I posted up thread that the current trendy framework of viewing morality and ethics through a lens of “who has power” is a broken worldview. Sometimes, often even, the powerful are the more good, or least bad. 

    Are you suggesting that the IDF (and other Israeli security forces) don’t subject Palestinian women to sexual violence, including rape?

    Or are you saying that the rapes performed by Hamas is worse than the rapes performed by Israel?

  18. 16 hours ago, TwiceHorn said:

    Agreed.  This incessant incantation of "core political speech" is not going to get them there.

    One of the remarkable things, as usual, each side was given 20 minutes.  Somehow or other, Trump's side wound up lasting 70 minutes.  I didn't see what the government wound up getting, but the total was more than 2 hours.   Quite unusual.

    For the peanut gallery, when you're doing oral argument, there's usually a pair of lights, green and red, up near the judges bench.  In the last few minutes, the red light starts blinking and when it turns full red, you usually stfu, but also answer any pending questions from the judges, they give you that.  Not sure how it bled into 70 minutes, but the judges obviously didn't do anything.

    I listened to the whole to the whole thing.  It lasted that long because the judges (particularly the  women) grilled the fuck out of Trump’s lawyer (and the a lesser degree the state’s).  At one point she was literally reading word for word back to Trump’s lawyer one of the cases they cited and explaining to him how it doesn’t say what they claim it says.  

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  19. 50 minutes ago, statsman said:

    I see three groups opposed to Israel:

    -antisemites

    - anti-Zionists

    - pro-Palestinians  

    The latter two groups can make coherent arguments for their stances. I personally disagree that (as the UN once voted) that Zionism is racism. And I think the third stance (pro-Palestinian) is one everyone should have at least to some extent. 
     
    The Venn diagrams of the group have debatable intersections (although I contend that every antisemite is also an anti-Zionist, although the reverse isn’t true. There are a lot of antisemites that aren’t pro-Palestinian)

    Of organized political parties, movements, forces and factions, I believe Hamas is more antisemitic than anything else. Frankly, they look to me like the Islamic version of the KKK. They have the extinction of an ethnic group as a primary goal in their charter. I think seeing their side is akin to trying to see the KKK’s side. I think allowing them to shelter in a civilian population makes as much sense as making a 40k strong , armed KKK shelter in a civilian population. 
     
    I view Israelis as an ethnic group trying to deal with a large, hostile, armed and active group like the KKK. 
     
    The West Bank? I’m not dumb enough to believe Hamas is staying out of the WB. 

    1.) I don’t agree that anti-semetism and Pro-Zionism are mutually exclusive positions.  I would argue that is the exact position when it comes to many on the right. They buy into the anti- Semitic tropes and dog whistles about Jews individually (see Soros, George) and as a group and yet are have a staunchly Zionist view of what Israel should be- primarily due to a fundamentalist view of the Bible and/or the fact that they hate Muslims even more.  
     

    2.) If we understand your definition of those who are “opposed to Israel” to mean “opposed to what Israel is doing vis a vie the  Palestinian question”, then I think can you add a fourth group:  those who are Pro-Israel.  A very legitimate argument can be made that the policies of Israel in the recent past and current war lessen the chance of a secure and safe future for Israel. 

  20. 2 minutes ago, Gil Bang said:

    She's got a photo on insta with Chuck Shumer.

    Considering the photos of him and Epstein, the Dotard might want to reconsider this particular bit of #trumplogic.  

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