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bolverk

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bolverk last won the day on May 13

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  1. By all means, lock it up. This thread was originally intended to provide a place for discussion of non-UT college protests because certain posters kept fucking that thread up by including shit not happening in Austin. Then, as the campus protests began to wind down around the country, off-campus shit started getting posted as posters felt the need to keep spamming the board with outrage porn from questionable sources. But now America stuff isn't enough anymore, and so shit about protests from across the pond are being included Lotta misinfo is still getting posted. Take, for example, the ISIS/al-Qaeda flag tweet just now. That's not what those flags are, as the tweeter (a defender of Jan 6 rioters) probably knows. Or I can cite the tweet that wasn't even about protests, but rather it was a provocateur bitching about an arcane reference to the Talmud in an academic paper. Hell, pronghorn doesn't care if he's shitposting since he's admitted the purpose of his posts is to promote propaganda which, in my view, is trolling. So, yeah, I've pushed back to provide a little more balance about which protesters to ridicule. Sue me. If you feel this thread has outlived its usefulness,
  2. The extremist and sometimes violent Israeli settlers and their leaders, who vocally support ethnic cleansing while claiming all the land from the river to the sea and with whom Bibi has allied to stay in power, get a pass though. Right?
  3. It's probably not the right discussion for this since it concerns policy. Plus, we've discussed several possible solutions in the CR thread. To keep it brief: The Israelis and the Palestinians must both relinquish any claim to land beyond the 1967 borders and recognize each other's right to exist. Go back to the idea in the original mandate: make Jerusalem an international city. International peacekeeping force and administration of Palestine for a period of time as it transitions to independence and builds up institutions. I firmly disagree with Israeli involvement in this effort. All homes and infrastructure in the illegal settlements remain in place but handed over unmarred to the Palestinian State and refugees. I'd likely keep some sort of peacekeeping presence all along the borders separating the two nations for quite some time.
  4. @statsman Have you got something to say? They've counted and identified 25,000 bodies with an estimated 10,000 more to go. There are also an estimated 7-10,000 additional bodies thought to be under the rubble. The MoH, which you assume to be lying, estimates 35,000 known dead. Benjamin Netanyahu, who you assume to be telling the truth, estimates 30,000 known dead. I don't see what's funny.
  5. Not just the WHO. Early in the war, when its figures were called into question, the health ministry released a list of names, ages and identification numbers of the dead. Researchers at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine analyzed that data, in a report published in November in The Lancet, and found “no obvious reason to doubt the validity of the data.” Airwars, a British organization that assesses claims of civilian harm in conflicts, has matched the names of those reported killed with lists of names released by the health ministry. The vast majority of names match up, said Emily Tripp, the group’s director. Airwars also analyzed a ministry of health list of names issued earlier in the conflict and found that the proportion of children, women and men reported by the ministry roughly aligned with its own data collection, she said. Neta Crawford, a professor of political science at Oxford University and the founder of the Costs of War project, which examines the consequences of the post 9/11 wars, argued that the figures appeared to have been produced to professional standards. Hell, even Bibi says it's at least 30,000. But figures cited by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel are not drastically different from those used by the United Nations. He said last week that Israeli forces had killed about 14,000 Hamas combatants and 16,000 civilians, for a total of around 30,000, without elaborating on the source for those numbers. If you've seen photos of the destruction in Gaza and still think the numbers are wildly inflated, you're living in denial.
  6. Y'all are the ones who started posting about protests taking place off college campuses and in Europe. Now you complain when I change the thread title to accommodate those broader discussions? It's also hilarious that you suddenly show a concern about whether something on video has been staged. I've stated my positions clearly. Hamas are terrorist assholes and should be defeated, but Israel has gone way too far by causing far too many deaths and far too much destruction. That's a widely shared belief, and there's nothing radical about it. Just about every single nation or international organization has said as much, and war crimes are currently being investigated. There should be a ceasefire to allow more aid to ease the suffering of the Palestinians as the threat of widespread famine looms and also to allow continued negotiations over the release of the 130-something innocent Israeli hostages and the 1000s of innocent Palestinian hostages detainees. Both Israelis AND Palestinians have the right to self-determination, including having their own fully autonomous, independent nations that are free from outside interference. The boundaries between the two should be fixed at the internationally recognized 1967 borders. The protests AND the counterprotests are mostly unproductive clown shows. I'm sorry it hurts your feelings when "your side" is shown to be full of idiots, too. The one exception is the protesting going on inside Israel. Those protests actually matter because they involve hostage families and others who could legitimately influence what's going on with the war. That's what I want. What about you? What do you want? I'm with you on this one.
  7. Based on their refusal to engage (hell, or even post) in the war thread now, it's obvious don't give a shit about it anymore. Their biggest concern is apparently that college kids or anyone else would have the audacity to call for a ceasefire or deign to suggest that Bibi's government isn't 100% right about everything all the time. Now, they're complaining that I changed the thread title to "Worldwide Israel/Palestine War Protest thread" to expand its scope after they'd already started posting about shit not taking place on campuses or outside America. They especially don't like it when you bring up protests against the war taking place inside Israel.
  8. Nothing wrong with Gaza death toll figures, WHO says GENEVA, May 14 (Reuters) - The World Health Organization voiced full confidence in Gaza Ministry of Health death toll figures on Tuesday, saying they were actually getting closer to confirming the scale of losses after Israel questioned a change in the numbers. Gaza's health ministry last week updated its breakdown of the total fatalities of around 35,000 since Oct. 7, saying that about 25,000 of those have so far been fully identified, of whom more than half were women and children. This sparked allegations from Israel of inaccuracy since Palestinian authorities had previously estimated that more than 70% of those killed were women and children. U.N. agencies have republished the Palestinian figures, which have since risen above 35,000 dead, citing the source. "Nothing wrong with the data, the overall data (more than 35,000) are still the same," said WHO spokesperson Christian Lindmeier at a Geneva press briefing in response to questions about the toll. "The fact we now have 25,000 identified people is a step forward," he added. Based on his own extrapolation of the latest Palestinian data, he said that around 60% of victims were women and children, but many bodies buried beneath rubble were likely to fall into these categories when they were eventually identified. He added that it was "normal" for death tolls to shift in conflicts, recalling that Israel had revised down its own death toll from the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks to 1,200 after checks. "We're basically talking about 35,000 people who are dead, and really every life matters, doesn't it?" Liz Throssel, spokesperson for the U.N. human rights office, said at the same briefing. "And we know that many and many of those are women and children and there are 1,000s missing under the rubble."
  9. French, Dutch seek EU sanctions on financial institutions helping Russia military BRUSSELS, May 14 (Reuters) - France and the Netherlands are seeking European Union sanctions on any financial institution in the world that helps Russia's military pay for goods or technology for making weapons, according to a proposal seen by Reuters. The EU has been trying to prevent circumvention of 13 packages of sanctions already imposed on Russia since it invaded Ukraine in February 2022. Existing sanctions include a ban on selling to Russia certain dual-use goods and technologies that have both civilian and military application. Ambassadors of EU governments will discuss the proposal on Wednesday as part of the 14th package of sanctions against Russia now under preparation by the EU. Under the proposal, anyone in the EU could be banned from doing business with any financial institution in the world, identified by the EU as directly or indirectly helping Russia's military obtain forbidden dual-use goods and technologies. Such a ban could be a powerful incentive for financial institutions in the Middle East, Turkey or even China not to engage in deals to supply EU-sanctioned dual-use goods to Russia as they could lose access to European business and the EU's financial markets. EU officials said the European Commission would be likely to coordinate any such sanctions on financial institutions with the U.S., making the tool even more powerful. "The Netherlands and France propose to introduce a legal basis ... providing for a transaction ban with financial institutions in Russia or other third countries when the Council has determined that these entities to be involved in transactions that significantly support Russia’s military by facilitating exports towards Russia of essential goods for the war effort, such as dual-use goods and technologies or goods listed in annexes VII and XL of the Regulation," the Franco-Dutch proposal, seen by Reuters, said. Hungary, which has warm ties with Moscow despite the invasion of Ukraine, may oppose the proposal, and possibly Germany, keen not to jeopardise close business ties with China. The European Commission said last month there were signs that Beijing was supplying components to Russia that could be used to make weapons. The EU expects to have the 14th sanctions package, which requires unanimity among all of the EU's 27 governments, ready in June.
  10. More info on the UN switch over to using newly published counts of identified bodies by the Ministry of Health instead of the previously estimated ratio. So, yeah, it's not the nefarious plot that Elliott Abrams and The Jerusalem Post implied, but I suppose they can be forgiven for not understanding how to read and interpret data, assuming they weren't intentionally trying to deceive their readers. But that says nothing about the stats guy who wrote the discredited hit piece in The Tablet that keeps getting cited. How Many of Gaza’s Dead Are Women and Children? For 10,000, It’s Unclear. The United Nations has begun citing a much lower death toll for women and children in Gaza, acknowledging that it has incomplete information about many of the people killed during Israel’s military offensive in the territory. As recently as May 6, the U.N’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said in its regularly updated online report that at least 9,500 women and 14,500 children were among the dead, out of an overall death toll of 34,735. Two days later, the U.N. said in another online update that 4,959 women, 7,797 children and 10,006 men had been killed. While the total number of deaths remained roughly the same, a U.N. official said that it was awaiting more identifying information from officials in Gaza for about 10,000 of the dead, so they were not included in the new breakdown of women, men and children. The change in the U.N.’s numbers — and the confusion over the discrepancy — has added fuel to a debate over the credibility of the Gazan authorities’ tallies of fatalities in the war. The deaths of women and children are seen as an important, if incomplete, indication of how many civilians have been killed, a question that lies at the heart of the criticism of Israel’s conduct of the war. The change came because the United Nations switched to citing a more conservative source for its numbers — the Gazan Ministry of Health — rather than using Gaza’s Government Media Office, as it had in recent weeks. Both offices are part of the Hamas-run government in the enclave. Many international officials and experts familiar with the way the health ministry verifies deaths in Gaza — drawing from morgues and hospitals across the territory — say its numbers are generally reliable. The health ministry says its count of women and children killed is based on the total number of people whose identities it can fully verify — 24,840 individuals in all as of May 13. More than 10,000 other people have also been killed, the health ministry says, but it does not have their full names, official ID numbers or other information it needs to be certain of their identities. That is why they are not included in the breakdown of women and children killed which is now being cited by the U.N., officials said. “There’s about another 10,000-plus bodies who still have to be fully identified,” Farhan Haq, a spokesman for the U.N., said on Monday. He added: “The details of those — which of those are children, which of those are women — that will be reestablished once the full identification process is complete.” Mr. Haq said the United Nations was relying on the data coming out of the health ministry, as it has “in all previous conflicts.” He added that the U.N. had started using figures from Gaza’s media office because there had been a pause in reporting from the health ministry. But now that the ministry’s casualty reporting was back on line, he said, the U.N. had returned to using its information. What do Israel and other critics say? Israeli officials say they are suspicious of the Gazan health ministry’s count. A spokesman for the Israeli military, Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani, noted that the health ministry does not distinguish in its numbers between combatants and civilians. He also said that Israel sees every civilian death as a tragedy. After the United Nations issued a lower documented death toll for women and children, Israel’s foreign minister, Israel Katz, called the new numbers “the miraculous resurrection of the dead in Gaza,” saying the United Nations had relied on “fake data from a terrorist organization.” Elliott Abrams, a veteran American conservative, said in an article for the Council on Foreign Relations on Sunday that it has become “increasingly clear that these numbers represent Hamas propaganda.” But figures cited by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel are not drastically different from those used by the United Nations. He said last week that Israeli forces had killed about 14,000 Hamas combatants and 16,000 civilians, for a total of around 30,000, without elaborating on the source for those numbers. Are the new casualty numbers viewed as credible? In a sign that the U.S. government views casualty figures supplied by the Gaza health authorities as reliable, President Biden cited their overall death toll in his State of the Union speech in March. The United Nations publishes the health ministry’s figures on a website and U.N. leaders refer to them frequently. A few weeks ago, the health ministry released its latest list detailing the identities of the dead that it had fully documented. It has also released a series of detailed reports explaining how it compiles casualty figures. Early in the war, when its figures were called into question, the health ministry released a list of names, ages and identification numbers of the dead. Researchers at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine analyzed that data, in a report published in November in The Lancet, and found “no obvious reason to doubt the validity of the data.” Airwars, a British organization that assesses claims of civilian harm in conflicts, has matched the names of those reported killed with lists of names released by the health ministry. The vast majority of names match up, said Emily Tripp, the group’s director. Airwars also analyzed a ministry of health list of names issued earlier in the conflict and found that the proportion of children, women and men reported by the ministry roughly aligned with its own data collection, she said. Neta Crawford, a professor of political science at Oxford University and the founder of the Costs of War project, which examines the consequences of the post 9/11 wars, argued that the figures appeared to have been produced to professional standards. How are casualty numbers compiled? International experts who have worked with health officials in Gaza during this and other wars say that hospitals and morgues in the enclave gather and report the names, ID numbers and other details of people who have been killed in the territory. The detailed count excludes thousands of people reported at hospitals as missing but believed to be buried under rubble; they are counted as dead only when their bodies are found. That Gaza media office has consistently provided an overall death toll similar to the one given by the ministry of health, but different and often higher figures for the number of women and children killed. Ismail Al Thawabateh, the office’s director general, said in an interview that the health ministry listed and categorized an individual as dead only when all of their details had been documented and verified by a next of kin. He did not explain why his office used a breakdown of women and children based on the overall death toll. “The remaining 10,000 are bodies that have entered the hospitals but until this moment, the next of kin have not been reached yet to verify how they were martyred and completing their information,” he said. When reached, Ashraf al-Qudra, the Gaza health ministry’s spokesman referred questions to the Ministry of Health’s latest report from May 13.
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  12. Looks like it's a wrap for the afternoon.
  13. Yes, she and her husband staged it, and they didn't get the reaction they were hoping for. https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/jew-shirt-lady-at-yale-pro-palestine-protest
  14. There's been plenty of previous discussion about anti-Palestine counterprotesters. How is my including clips of counterprotesters off-topic? How is my including an article about a US Army officer resigning in protest not germane to a discussion about protests? Are you saying that a discussion about Israelis protesting the war that they are directly involved in isn't relevant?
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