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Posted
Just now, 956 Worldwide said:

No, I can’t prove a negative but I can identify you as a dumbass. 

There's a lot of social media out there consistent with the timing of the video. Do you know a lot of people who do celebratory dances with Pepsi products on their heads? It takes a lot of cognitive dissonance, if not arrogance, to assume all these news sources are lying just to defame a group of people.

Even if they were biased, how does any of that justify the extrajudicial hanging of pregnant women? Why do you keep avoiding that question?

Posted
2 minutes ago, chainsaw said:

Can you refute it?

Come on, man, stop. It's obviously a dude bottle dancing at a wedding. There is not one bit of evidence to suggest anything beyond that. You're basically doing the PRONG HORN thing posting shit from some social media rage bait account, aka the thing I've been trying to get people to fucking stop doing for months.

Both of you are just literally proving immamac's point with this stupid ass argument about nothing that nobody fucking cares about.

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Posted
15 minutes ago, chainsaw said:

There's a lot of social media out there consistent with the timing of the video. Do you know a lot of people who do celebratory dances with Pepsi products on their heads? It takes a lot of cognitive dissonance, if not arrogance, to assume all these news sources are lying just to defame a group of people.

 

Yeah, what was I thinking, there’s no way a bunch of people are lying on social media. You got me there man. 

Posted
Just now, 956 Worldwide said:

Yeah, what was I thinking, there’s no way a bunch of people are lying on social media. You got me there man. 

I mean sure it's possible all these people conspired to tell the same lie, but I don't think it's very likely.

Will you ever tell us what your position is on the hanging of pregnant women?

Posted
6 minutes ago, chainsaw said:

I mean sure it's possible all these people conspired to tell the same lie, but I don't think it's very likely.

Will you ever tell us what your position is on the hanging of pregnant women?

If you haven’t figured it out, I think you’re posting rage-bait with a questionable tie to reality so I won’t comment.

Posted

More on the hostage.  All i know is this guy fucks.

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel said it rescued a hostage from an underground tunnel in Gaza on Tuesday, freeing one of the scores of people abducted during the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas that ignited the war in Gaza.

The rescue brought a rare moment of joy to Israelis after 10 months of war but also served as a painful reminder that dozens of hostages are still in captivity as international mediators try to broker a cease-fire in which they would be released.

The military said Qaid Farhan Alkadi was rescued from a tunnel in a “complex operation” in the southern Gaza Strip, but provided few other details. It was not immediately known if the rescue was made under fire or if anyone was killed or wounded during the operation.

Alkadi was one of eight members of Israel’s Arab Bedouin minority who were abducted on Oct. 7. He was working as a guard at a packing factory in Kibbutz Magen, one of several farming communities that came under attack. He has two wives and is the father of 11 children.

https://apnews.com/article/israel-palestinians-hamas-war-news-08-27-2024-696f8ee830207815efd31320976ef118

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Posted


Celebrating at the DNC in a Time of Genocide

Joy was everywhere—as long as you didn’t think about Gaza.
 

Chicago—The Democratic National Convention is over. The tens of thousands of Democrats who descended on Chicago this week are now on their way back home. And to judge by the headlines, they had a wonderful time.

The theme of “joy” has dominated the messaging from both the Kamala Harris campaign and the media over the past few days. “Kamala Harris leans on the ‘politics of joy,’” began a headline in the Chicago Sun-Times. USA Today titled a piece, “DNC is bubbling with joy and optimism. Could Trump’s dark view of America be … a lie?”

But a scrappy, underfunded coalition of activists wasn’t ready to vibe their way through what they and countless scholars say is an ongoing genocide in Gaza—one that continues to be carried out using American weapons.

These activists were both inside and outside the DNC. The Coalition to March on the DNC, composed of more than 250 organizations, held two mobilizations at the beginning and end of the convention, and people turned out in the thousands, uniting around the demands to end the genocide and stop all US aid to Israel. (Other groups also took action throughout the week.) And 29 uncommitted delegates, representing roughly 740,000 voters who cast protest votes during the primary to show their opposition to US support for Israel’s military operations, showed up inside the DNC calling for an arms embargo. They staged an overnight sit-in, followed by a mobilization inside the DNC, pushing their far more moderate demand for a Palestinian-American speaker on the main stage (though their primary goal, and that of protesters outside of the perimeter, remained an arms embargo against Israel).

All of this work was ultimately in service of one end: to make sure that gleeful liberals cannot evade the shameful, inconvenient fact that the Biden White House—and the Harris campaign—have not changed their position on Israel’s ongoing, wholesale destruction of Gaza.

Not that Democrats and their allies aren’t striving mightily to convince people otherwise. In her climactic acceptance speech on Thursday night, Harris called the suffering in Gaza “devastating” and “heartbreaking,” though she refused to identify the cause of that suffering. She said she and Biden were “working to secure a ceasefire” so that “the Palestinian people can realize their right to dignity, security, freedom and self-determination”—words that are identical to ones Biden has been using. For this bare minimum, she was hailed by liberal pundits as having broken important new ground.

But the truth is clear. Despite both Biden and Harris’s pointing to so-called “ceasefire talks,” they have each refused to back peace activists’ demand—a demand shared by all major Palestinian organizations, humanitarian groups, and seven major unions representing nearly half of all union members, including the NEA, SEIU, and UAW: a total arms embargo against Israel until it ends its bombing, siege, and occupation of Gaza.

To the average Democrat, all of this can, understandably, be a bit confusing. After all, don’t the White House and Vice President Harris support a ceasefire?

The confusion is the point. Biden and Harris support a ceasefire in name only. The White House co-opted calls for a ceasefire last February and shifted the definition from its common historical usage: using the threat of an arms embargo to force Israel to end its military campaign. That’s how the term was used in previous attacks on Gaza in 2009, 2012, 2014, 2018, 2021. Now, “ceasefire” refers to a vague truce outline that Israel can choose or not choose to agree to, while still receiving US military aid no matter what.

This is why, beginning in the spring of this year, activists shifted their key demand from a ceasefire to an arms embargo on Israel: Because the White house and many Democrats had turned the word “ceasefire”—like the phrase “two-state solution” before it— into yet another way to buy Israel time as it continued to inflict a daily death toll that is unprecedented in the 21st century.

The week of the DNC, the official death toll, which researchers believe to be a massive undercount, surpassed 40,000. The day Kamala Harris gave her speech, over 40 Palestinians were killed by Israel bombings in Khan Younis, including over a dozen children.

The PR effort by the White House to co-opt and warp the term “ceasefire”—in concert with switching from Biden to Harris—seems to have mostly worked. Youth support has shot back up, and the “vibes” are reportedly good again.

But those actually focused on policy, and the fact of the US support for genocide, aren’t easily fooled by these superficial gestures. They will not be won over by vague shifts in “tone” or “I see you, I hear you” nonprofit speak. So this week in Chicago, the city with the largest Palestinian diaspora population in the United States, they stuck by their plans to pressure both the current President Biden and likely future President Harris to agree to an arms embargo— to condition aid to Israel until it acts in line with US and international law.

Thus far, Harris has refused these requests. Her top foreign policy adviser Phil Gordon told reporters on August 8 that “Harris does not support an arms embargo on Israel.” And her former Senate national security adviser Halie Soifer told a panel at the DNC on August 20, “A Kamala Harris administration will not cut or condition US security assistance to Israel.” Put simply, Harris will continue Biden’s strategy: pretending that a ceasefire will happen by magic, or that Benjamin Netanyahu will have a sudden change of heart, rather than using actual leverage from the most powerful country in human history to end the war.

In an obscure conference room outside the DNC security perimeter, I met a group of courageous doctors who described the most unimaginable horrors, flanked by uncommitted delegates.

They had all volunteered in Gaza, sometimes for months. Now they were in Chicago to try to break through, to appeal to the humanity of the DNC attendees. They spoke of holding the hands of dying children who didn’t have family members alive left to care for them. They described collapsed medical systems where basic supplies like soap and bandages were so scarce they couldn’t even perform as doctors. Feroze Sidhwa, a trauma surgeon who was in Gaza from March 25 to April 8, told the room:

Quote

“I saw children’s heads smashed to pieces by bullets we paid for, not once, not twice, but every single day. I saw the outrageous, systematic destruction of the entire city of Khan Younis. If there is a single room with four walls left in the entire city I couldn’t tell you where it is. I saw mothers mix what little formula they could find with poisoned water to feed to their newborns, since they were so malnourished themselves that they could not breastfeed. I saw children who cried not out of pain, but because they wished they had died along with their families instead of being burdened with the memory of their siblings and parents charred and mutilated beyond recognition. All, of course, by American ordnance.”

Yet the party must go on, and for the vast bulk of Democrats, this fake “ceasefire” PR has given them permission to compartmentalize the horrors of Gaza. But the line between the Biden-Harris administration and Gaza isn’t the least bit circuitous. It’s clear and straight. The Gaza genocide is real and very much the responsibility, in large part, of the current administration.

Needless to say, powerful Democrats are not particularly keen to discuss this reality. When we saw Chuck Schumer on the floor of the DNC, where he was being warmly greeted by his supporters, we asked him if he backed the calls from the UAW and other labor unions for an arms embargo on Israel. The second he heard our question, he walked away. The horrors of Gaza can only ruin the vibes.
 

A group of 29 uncommitted delegates, meanwhile, did their best to be the most reasonable, loyal, and moderate pro-Palestine voice of the bunch. Despite their praising Kamala Harris, trying to work with her, and trying to use their credentials as established Democratic loyalists and voters, the party rejected their request for a brief speaking slot.

The protesters outside, meanwhile, were mocked and given snarky write-ups belittling their turnout, even as they showed up in the thousands and took to the streets despite a heavy police presence, with at least 74 people arrested since last Sunday.

There is simply no right way to oppose genocide. Whether you’re an exceedingly polite self-described “insider” or a protester in the streets, you’re either ignored, treated like a terrorist, or called a joke.

The whiplash from the beige, off-site conference room in a large, mostly empty convention center talking to doctors pleading for some kind of change in policy to the fever-pitched excitement on the packed convention floor was sobering. The contrast was morally upsetting to anyone who believes in the straight line between the White House and the nonstop images of dead children. But most don’t. And it’s unclear how to make that connection for millions who simply don’t want to see what is obvious.

The easy leftist answer is that those inside are simply misinformed, heavily propagandized. And while that’s no doubt true to a large extent, I’m not totally sure they don’t want to be. Partisanship is a powerful force. Media misinformation is a powerful force. Having parasocial relations with our elected leaders is a powerful force. Fearing Donald Trump and the real dangers of Project 2025 is a powerful force.

This combination results in the widespread decision to push Gaza out of sight. One can’t help but think that if just 5 percent of this support on marked display at the United Center this week was withheld on condition of Harris agreeing to end arms sales to the Gaza genocide, she would agree overnight. If pro–arms embargo elected officials like Representatives Ilhan Omar and Joaquin Castro, and pro–arms embargo unions like SEIU, NEA, and UAW, had withheld their endorsements until after Harris agreed to cut off aid—rather than offering it in a matter of days—it may have worked. But they didn’t. The lone Palestinian American in Congress, Representative Rashida Tlaib, did, but she remains on a limb all alone. Most progressives issued good statements, no doubt, but like the Biden White House, refused to use their actual leverage. Everyone says the right things, and feels bad and sad, but almost no one I spoke to—except the protesters outside, the Gaza healthcare workers, and the uncommitted delegates inside—seemed to be willing to actually risk anything.

And so the bombs continue, and the party goes on. Gaza is removed from our minds and the field of vision of those attending the big celebration. And everyone—or at least those not on the wrong end of American weapons—gets to feel “joy” again.

https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/dnc-gaza-genocide/

Posted

That article sparked me to read another BBC article about the missing hostages since I noticed that the guy was Bedouin.  There are still some other remaining Bedouin, as well as at least one Nepalese and several Thais (and bodies of some Thai hostages). 
 

I guess I can kind of see the Bedouin being viewed as traitors to Islam or whatever, but it’s wild about the Nepalese and Thais.  You’d think they’d have given then back early to score some PR points but then again these are the worst people in the world. 

Posted

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/08/28/israel-gaza-war-west-bank-palestinian/

Israel currently carrying out a large scale op in the West Bank, a place where they definitely do not belong in any capacity. Their goal is to "thwart terror", again in a place where they should not be at all, in a place where they themselves are the terrorists.

https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2024-08-28/ty-article/.premium/palestinians-report-nine-killed-eight-wounded-in-israeli-army-west-bank-raids/00000191-97e9-df0a-ab9f-f7e97b7d0000

Quote

Israel's foreign minister likened the raid to operations in Gaza, saying Israel should consider 'temporary evacuations in the West Bank'

Remember when I said they wanted to do the exact same thing they're doing to Gaza to the West Bank? No one that gets "temporarily evacuated" will ever be allowed to return to their homes. This is our tax dollars at work, again.

  • Rage+1 3
Posted

What do they gain? Not a fucking thing.

And on the subject of US Tax dollars. We fund and train (yep, US personnel) the West Bank's Police Authority. So we train the people who are there to defend against violence AND those committing the violence. Fucked up policy....

 

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Posted

US Health Workers Back From Gaza Calculate Death Toll at 92,000 — at a Minimum
 

Quote

 

Dozens of U.S. doctors and nurses who have returned from volunteer trips to Gaza say in a scathing new letter that Israel’s assault, along with the famine and epidemics raging across Gaza, have killed a conservative estimate of at least 92,000 Palestinians so far — over double the widely-cited official death count by health officials.

In their message sent to President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, and the first lady on Thursday, the group of 45 health care workers say that the things they saw in Gaza are beyond anything they have seen in other conflicts, and will forever be seared in their minds.

“President and Dr. Biden, we wish you could see the nightmares that plague so many of us since we have returned: dreams of children maimed and mutilated by our weapons, and their inconsolable mothers begging us to save them,” they wrote. “We wish you could hear the cries and screams our consciences will not let us forget. We cannot believe that anyone would continue arming the country that is deliberately killing these children after seeing what we have seen.”

The range of horrors the health care workers reported seeing is extremely wide, encompassing dire hunger, grisly injuries and deadly illnesses. While in Gaza, thy saw babies die each day; held babies’ brains in their hands for the first time — and not the last; had to treat children who were shot in the head on a daily basis; and watched desperate families have to feed their newborns with formula mixed with “poisoned water”; among countless other atrocities.

With few exceptions, “everyone in Gaza is sick, injured, or both,” they wrote — including the entirety of the Palestinian population, every aid worker and volunteer, and likely every Israeli hostage. They said that every child under five years old they encountered, both in and out of their care, likely had Hepatitis A.

The spread of illness is due to Israel’s blockade and attacks on the Gaza sanitation system, they said, and will only get worse.

“Israel’s continued, repeated displacement of the malnourished and sick population of Gaza, half of whom are children, to areas with no running water or even toilets available is absolutely shocking,” the letter says.

“It is virtually guaranteed to result in widespread death from viral and bacterial diarrheal diseases and pneumonias, particularly in children under the age of five. We worry that unknown thousands have already died from the lethal combination of malnutrition and disease, and that tens of thousands more will die in the coming months,” they said.

The letter concludes by urging the Biden administration to withhold military, diplomatic and economic support from Israel, and to participate in a global arms embargo, in order to secure a permanent ceasefire as soon as possible.

In an appendix to the letter, the medical workers cite statistics and projections from international experts in order to arrive at their estimate of the death toll, which they caution is — like the official death count of 39,000 Palestinians — also likely a vast undercount.

On top of the official death count, the workers say that the death toll from the famine is likely 37,786 people, a calculation based on estimates from reports by the UN-backed Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) about Gaza and typical death tolls from the levels of hunger the IPC has found in Gaza.

This is far, far higher than the official estimate of 34 people who have died of starvation so far. The vast discrepancy is due to the impossibility of accounting for all starvation deaths, as health officials are only able to count deaths reported by health facilities — many of which are physically out of reach for starving Palestinians, both because they have been severely weakened and because hospitals in Gaza have been overflowing with patients for months.

“All told, it is highly likely that the death toll from starvation matches or even exceeds the death toll from violence in Gaza,” the medical workers said.

The deaths due to Israel’s starvation campaign include babies who only lived for a week before dying, as families have shared with Defense for Children International-Palestine (DCIP) in testimonies published this week. Parents report having to watch their children slowly waste away, completely unable to help them even when they’re admitted to treatment centers.

This includes seven-day-old Abdulaziz Salem, who only knew life in an incubator after dying on March 2 in Kamal Adwan as his mother was also in critical condition. Salem suffered from jaundice and malnutrition during pregnancy before dying of cardiac arrest and lack of oxygen, DCIP said.

“I could not breastfeed my son because I had no food and I became sick,” his mother told DCIP. She said her family was displaced six times while she was pregnant. “There was no oxygen or baby formula in the hospital. My son died, suffocating and hungry.”

The medical workers additionally estimate that Israel’s blockade on medical treatments and attacks on health care workers have killed at least 5,000 Palestinians so far — again, a low estimate, they emphasize as they say with “absolute certainty” that “no small number” of people with medical conditions like cancer or diabetes have died.

These numbers add up to roughly 92,000 people — roughly 4.2 percent of the entire population of Gaza. The estimates of the death toll don’t include the thousands of Palestinians missing and presumed dead under the rubble.

As the letter says, this is still likely much lower than the true death toll. The medical workers reference a recent estimate from an editorial published in medical journal The Lancet in which public health experts said that, going off death tolls from similar modern conflicts and massacres, the true death toll of Palestinians could be 186,000. This, too, is a low estimate, the researchers said.

The impact on children is particularly horrific. The health care workers point out that, even just going off the list of children killed who have been identified, the death toll is equivalent to 1.2 million children being killed in the U.S., adjusted for population.

“We are unaware of a similar proportion of any population being killed and maimed in 10 months of conflict since World War II,” the group said.

 

https://truthout.org/articles/us-health-workers-back-from-gaza-calculate-death-toll-at-92000-at-a-minimum/

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Posted

Some lighter news amid all the shit:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/08/28/israel-polio-pause-gaza/

Quote

Israel has agreed to a temporary pause of some military operations in the Gaza Strip to enable a polio vaccination campaign there, a senior State Department official said.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said in a statement that Israel had not agreed to “pauses in the fighting in order to administer polio vaccines,” but rather “the allocation of certain places in the Gaza Strip” for unstated purposes, an arrangement it said had been approved by the security cabinet. The wording appeared designed to avoid indicating it had approved a humanitarian pause in the fighting in the absence of a cease-fire deal opposed by some members of Netanyahu’s coalition.

The State Department official said that U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, during a meeting with Netanyahu in Israel last week, had made a “major push” to make arrangements for the safe implementation of a vaccination campaign after international health officials confirmed a case of the polio virus in Gaza, where vaccinations and other health care have been severely disrupted since the Israel-Hamas war began in early October.

The official spoke on the condition of anonymity while the details of the program, including the duration and locations of individual pauses, are still being worked out.

Word of the planned campaign came as the World Food Program said Wednesday it has temporarily suspended movement of its staff in Gaza “until further notice” after a clearly marked WFP vehicle came under fire Tuesday evening. The shooting took place “a few meters” from an Israel Defense Forces checkpoint at the Wadi Gaza bridge in the central part of the enclave, WFP said.

“Despite being clearly marked and receiving multiple clearances by Israeli authorities to approach, the vehicle was directly struck by gunfire as it was moving towards an [IDF] checkpoint,” WFP statement said. “It sustained at least ten bullets: five on the driver’s side, two on the passenger side and three on other parts of the vehicle. None of the employees onboard were physically harmed.”

Stéphane Dujarric, spokesman for U.N. Secretary General António Guterres, said the vehicle was shot at by the Israel Defense Forces. Dujarric said Wednesday that the United Nations had lodged a formal complaint with Israeli authorities, but so far has not received a response. The targeted vehicle, he said, was part of a convoy of at least three, all with clear WFP markings.

“We have no way to assess the mindset of those who are shooting at us,” Dujarric said. “We do know that the movement of this particular convoy was coordinated with the Israeli authorities. Whether the information wasn’t passed down, whether it was deliberate, whether there was another reason, those are explanations we would like to get.”

Cindy McCain, the head of WFP, said the shooting was “totally unacceptable ... We have repeatedly asked for a functioning deconfliction system in Gaza, and yet the current arrangements have failed.”

Israel — which has accused UNRWA, the main U.N. aid agency in Gaza, of Hamas sympathies — has said it implemented stricter deconfliction procedures for humanitarian vehicles traveling in Gaza after what it said was a mistaken attack in April on a marked World Central Kitchen vehicle. Seven WCK workers were killed in the attack.

The IDF said Sunday that polio vaccines for more than 1 million people have been delivered to Gaza, brought in specially refrigerated trucks in coordination with the United Nations. The World Health Organization and UNICEF, both U.N. agencies, have said they are organized to begin widespread vaccinations as soon as it is safe to do so.

The last case of polio was reported in Gaza a quarter century ago. Children are most at risk from the highly contagious virus.

This is a good thing, assuming no "accidental" massacres occur during the campaign.

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Posted
6 hours ago, MC Fresh Breath said:

US Health Workers Back From Gaza Calculate Death Toll at 92,000 — at a Minimum

 


I wonder how many of the 92,000 were counted twice.

 

 

 

 

  • Fuck You 1
Posted
11 hours ago, Brian Fantana said:

Genocide, terrorism, war crimes. Our 3 biggest exports.

Please elaborate. Other than Palestine where have we exported genocide and terrorism?

Did a new UT Student not wearing a Che shirt forget to tuck you in last night?

  • Haha 2
Posted
12 minutes ago, InkaUtexas said:

Please elaborate. Other than Palestine where have we exported genocide and terrorism?

Did a new UT Student not wearing a Che shirt forget to tuck you in last night?

America does a lot of things right in the world but we do a lot of things wrong.  I have no idea why we went to Iraq.  The CIA spent decades overthrowing central and south american politicians in favor of authoritarian dictators.  Same thing in Africa too.

  • Like 1
Posted
4 minutes ago, Keef said:

America does a lot of things right in the world but we do a lot of things wrong.  I have no idea why we went to Iraq.  The CIA spent decades overthrowing central and south american politicians in favor of authoritarian dictators.  Same thing in Africa too.

None of those are genocide.

Posted
1 minute ago, InkaUtexas said:

None of those are genocide.

I would encourage you to do a bit of reading on our involvement with Pinochet, Sukarno, and Habré, just off the top of my head.  And while certainly not a "genocide", I'm willing to bet far more Afghans and Iraqis died than Palestinians at this juncture.  

Posted
6 minutes ago, Keef said:

I would encourage you to do a bit of reading on our involvement with Pinochet, Sukarno, and Habré, just off the top of my head.  And while certainly not a "genocide", I'm willing to bet far more Afghans and Iraqis died than Palestinians at this juncture.  

Sure, I know those stories quite well. And we stood witness for years in Bosnia and Rwanda. Today as before we doing little to halt what is going on in Sudan. I asked him why where we committed Genocide (other than the US Native American Population).

Pinochet is not genocide. And look across the non-US supported Argentine Junta. Habre yes, but then we need to line up a lot more African leaders for tribal attrocities. Indonesia. Yes, was it more political or tribal/religeous or a hybrid.

Iraq , Afghanistan, not sure. Do you count inter-ethnic/tribal/religious incidents as part of our involvement? For instance, if a Sunni backed by Saudis blows up a Shia Mosque getting people, maybe a couple of militants, supporting Iran, does that count go against the US?

Posted
31 minutes ago, InkaUtexas said:

None of those are genocide.

We genocide democracy when democratic outcomes are not aligned with our foreign policy objectives. 

Posted

"The IDF said Sunday that polio vaccines for more than 1 million people have been delivered to Gaza, brought in specially refrigerated trucks in coordination with the United Nations. The World Health Organization and UNICEF, both U.N. agencies, have said they are organized to begin widespread vaccinations as soon as it is safe to do so.

The last case of polio was reported in Gaza a quarter century ago. Children are most at risk from the highly contagious virus."  

 

Please send all the anti-vaccine hardcases over there to see what they are responsible for.

Posted
2 hours ago, InkaUtexas said:

I asked him why where we committed Genocide (other than the US Native American Population).

Except that isn't what I said. When I refer to them as exports, it seems like everyone else understood I was talking about past/current instances where we have provided support for groups that were actively committing acts of terror and/or genocide or where our actions directly led to those acts occurring.

Posted
1 minute ago, Brian Fantana said:

Except that isn't what I said. When I refer to them as exports, it seems like everyone else understood I was talking about past/current instances where we have provided support for groups that were actively committing acts of terror and/or genocide or where our actions directly led to those acts occurring.

OK, where was the genocide? Using the UN's definition. I know you know it. None cited meet genocide as part of US policy, even with exporting training, equipment and morale support.

And I do think Israel is committing genocide. We are not exporting it. We are complicit in giving, not even fucking selling them, the tools.

Playing devil's advocate. It is a term tossed around and when it matters or is taking place, and it is in more places of the world than Palestine, it gets lost. Just like terror. One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter.

Posted
22 minutes ago, InkaUtexas said:

OK, where was the genocide? Using the UN's definition. I know you know it. None cited meet genocide as part of US policy, even with exporting training, equipment and morale support.

And I do think Israel is committing genocide. We are not exporting it. We are complicit in giving, not even fucking selling them, the tools.

Playing devil's advocate. It is a term tossed around and when it matters or is taking place, and it is in more places of the world than Palestine, it gets lost. Just like terror. One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter.

I'm just using the word export as an umbrella term to cover instances in which we are complicit in genocide, terrorism, etc. There are plenty of examples out there and I know you probably know most or all of them.

I don't think quibbling about the definition of genocide is useful at all. We didn't commit genocide in Iraq by the UN definition, but a million fucking people still died. I doubt they care if it was technically genocide or not.

Posted
10 minutes ago, Brian Fantana said:

I'm just using the word export as an umbrella term to cover instances in which we are complicit in genocide, terrorism, etc. There are plenty of examples out there and I know you probably know most or all of them.

I don't think quibbling about the definition of genocide is useful at all. We didn't commit genocide in Iraq by the UN definition, but a million fucking people still died. I doubt they care if it was technically genocide or not.

You can sub out “genocide” and use “aggression” as it pertains to Iraq and it’s just as awful, in addition to being more accurate. I mean I would never want to associate myself with a person whose moral values are such that they would look at Iraq and say “well at least it was only aggression and not genocide. I can live with that.”

But you are correct. Quibbling over what defines “genocide” entirely misses the point. It’s a fucking dodge. 

Posted
8 hours ago, Keef said:

I have no idea why we went to Iraq.

Mainly to get George W. Bush re-elected. There were other reasons. There were various factions with varying motivations. There were GOP hawks who thought Bush (41) should’ve invaded and removed Saddam Hussein after freeing Kuwait in the first Gulf War. Dick Cheney wanted to remove Saddam because that would allow us to lift sanctions on Iraqi oil which would help global energy markets (and his cronies at Halliburton). The military wanted a more target rich environment than Afghanistan because it would look better waging a “War on Terror” on TV. But the primary reason, and the reason they waited until 2003 to invade, was to get Dubya re-elected.

  • Hook 'Em 1
Posted
Quote

 

He just wanted to fix his shoes

Soha Hamdona The Electronic Intifada 29 August 2024
Damaged books lie in rubble

The aftermath of an Israeli airstrike on a school in the Rimal neighborhood of Gaza City on 20 August. Hadi Daoud APA images

On 3 August at 7 pm, Israeli occupation forces struck al-Hamama and al-Huda schools in Gaza’s Sheikh Radwan neighborhood.

Seventeen people were killed and more than 60 were injured.

Those martyred and injured are not just numbers.

An hour before the bombings, struggling with famine and difficult living conditions in the north, Ahmed Nayef Ayish, 16, the brother of a close friend of mine, had asked his sister Jumana if he could go to the tailor to get a torn shoe fixed since he couldn’t afford a new one.

The tailor was next to al-Hamama School.

This is life in Gaza.

The call came soon after the bombing. Ahmed had been injured. He had sustained fractures to his rib cage and shoulder. He had shrapnel wounds all over his body. One piece was lodged in his neck and head.

He was first listed in unstable condition at the Baptist Hospital.

Then he fell into a coma.

On the morning of 6 August, we received the news that Ahmed had passed.

Every day in Gaza is like this. Every day, someone we love is murdered.

What was 16-year-old Ahmed’s fault?

What was the fault of his friend who accompanied him and who was also martyred?

I will never forget you, Ahmed. No matter how much time passes, I will bring the voice of northern Gaza to the whole world and tell everyone how the Israeli occupation killed you.

You were just a child. You did not carry any weapons, just your own shoes to have them fixed.

At a tailor’s shop next to a school.

Rest in peace, little one.

 

 

Posted

"The school’s updated code of student conduct, announced earlier this month, classifies criticism of Zionism as a violation of the university’s antidiscrimination policies."

 

Quote

 

Students arriving on campus at New York University (NYU) this fall are being greeted with a few changes. The school, like many others across the country, was a hotbed of pro-Palestine rallies and protests during the prior school year, a response to Israel’s still-ongoing war on the Gaza Strip, the death toll of which is now estimated to be anywhere from 40,000 to more than 100,000. With no end in sight — Joe Biden, an ardent supporter of Israel, is still sending Israel bombs — NYU’s administrators spent the summer break coming up with ways to nip campus activism in the bud.

It’s not only the barricades blocking off seating in the public spaces on campus, watched over by security guards, though that sends a decidedly unwelcoming message. The school’s updated code of student conduct, announced earlier this month, classifies criticism of Zionism as a violation of the university’s antidiscrimination policies.

According to the updated conduct guide, “Speech and conduct that would violate the NDAH [nondiscrimination and anti-harassment policy] if targeting Jewish or Israeli people can also violate the NDAH if directed toward Zionists.” In other words, at NYU, Zionists are now a protected class.

To pull that off requires conflating Zionism, an ethnonationalist ideology, with Judaism itself. That sleight of hand has long been a priority for supporters of Israel — including the powerful ones who constitute the Israel lobby, the coalition of pro-Israel organizations, some of them funded by the Israeli state, who work to ensure that the United States continues sending money and weapons to its Middle East ally.

The conflation accomplishes an important trick: if “Zionist” is a synonym for “Jew,” criticism of Zionism becomes bigotry, as it now has at NYU. As the school’s code of conduct puts it, “Using code words, like ‘Zionist’ does not eliminate the possibility that your speech violates the NDAH policy.”

“The new guidance sets a dangerous precedent by extending Title VI protections to anyone who adheres to Zionism, a nationalist political ideology, and troublingly equates criticism of Zionism with discrimination against Jewish people,” NYU’s Faculty for Justice in Palestine said in a statement in response to the updated code of conduct.

NYU’s administrators aren’t the only ones greeting the school year with new restrictions on speech. At the University of California, which saw a UC-wide graduate-student strike last spring, administrators are finalizing their own new restrictions on protest, which are expected to include bans on face masks and encampments.

There are parallel efforts among the state’s elected officials: as the end of the legislative session nears, lawmakers are now considering a bill which would require schools to adopt and enforce rules against harassment, discrimination, or any behavior that “creates a hostile environment on campus.”

Senate Bill 1287, introduced in February by Democratic state senator Steve Glazer, originally included a ban on any “call for or support of genocide,” which many saw as concerned not with Israel’s actions but rather as a response to the slogan “From the river to the sea.” That language has since been removed after free speech advocates raised concerns that the legislation violates the First Amendment.

“It was very clear who this bill was targeting,” Leena Sabagh, a policy manager with the Council on Islamic-American Relations, told the Intercept. Free speech organizations are still alarmed by the amended bill: the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) in California has said that it will “set a dangerous precedent of chilling speech on campuses across the state.”

 

But Israel is still bombing the Gaza Strip, and the US government is still aiding and abetting that violence. US universities are still implicated in the genocide through their investments in companies that profit from the war. Just this week, Israel launched its most sweeping offensive in the occupied West Bank since the Second Intifada. In Gaza, Israel is still starving civilians and destroying Palestinians’ water infrastructure.

The Democratic Party may be hell bent on running a good-vibes-only presidential campaign, but expect that to run headfirst into a wave of campus protests that only died down because of the summer recess. No amount of repression and restrictions will stop students from protesting a genocide. Columbia University students demonstrated that mere months ago. (Columbia’s administrators, too, have added restrictions to their student conduct guidelines as well as limiting public access to campus, moves that have elicited criticism among some faculty and staff.)

Classes are only just getting underway, and already, college students are under arrest at the University of Michigan after police attempted to break up a pro-Palestine demonstration. The reasons for protest are just as pressing as they were during the previous school year.

https://jacobin.com/2024/08/college-protests-nyu-gaza-israel

 

 

Posted

This is so stupid. Aren't there multiple flavors of Zionism that range from 1) the establishment and protection of Israel, 2) ensuring Israel remains majority Jewish, and 3) revisionist Zionism which is an expansionist ideology that envisions Israel on both sides of the Jordan River?

If I were against any of those three positions (there are obviously more than just three), would I be labeled anti-Zionist and my speech anti-Semitic?

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Posted

This is a hard post. I study society's mindset in conflict. It is part of my job when we do reconstruction scenarios. But this has me thinking and in no way accepting what Israel is doing in Gaza and the West Bank.

So what is it that changed in Israel? Was talking to a few Jewish American friends a few days ago. One is against operations in Gaza and now the West Bank. The other is a fence sitter. Their takes led to this thinking.

I asked them if immigration has changed the Israeli mindset. Mostly gone are those who went through the Holocaust, replaced with those who grew up with the Never Again speech, but did not create the early vision of Modern Israel. Add to that a new wave who see Israel as their last bastion to make a life. Mainly these are the immigrants from Eastern Europe. A lot of those are the new settlers and do not have the same approach to government. Russians accept, and like, a strong leader who screams about what is best for the citizen is all that matters. Law and Order, your right to expand, second class citizens. You know, the shit we hear from the MAGA segment in the US.

The first said no, any good Israeli (notice the word good) will support Bibi and his actions. They are in the interest of the state. The state must eliminate any and all threats and expand to provide land for the new people. Actions must continue until every Israeli is safe.

The second said yes. Whereas Modern Israel was always a hodge podge of language and cultures, there was an agreement that they were above the past and just wanted their piece of land. Now the only common bind is punishment and rights to expand.

Surl thougths? Sorry if this is a bit garbled, there is never a clear cut answer on these subjects. But it leads to questions.

1- How strong is Bibi? We do not see a mass movement against the attacks in Gaza. We see events, but not labor strikes, etc.

2- At a time there was a thaw in relations with Arab states (Israelis can buy lease apartments in Dubai, etc.) how does this change? Will Israelis want to continue to engage?

3- If the conflicts and atrocities ended tomorrow, can both sides find a new normal that is not full occupation or full out civil war?

There is never peace until the populations both accept it.

 

Posted

https://www.news-journal.com/news/local/q-a-u-s-rep-colin-allred-talks-with-news-journal-about-bid-to-win/article_ae699160-6563-11ef-8fbd-bb4d5d97af48.html

Good journalism from.....Longview???

Quote

LNJ: As the war in Gaza approaches the one-year mark, national polls show a majority of Americans in both parties now support a ceasefire. Back in December, you were reluctant to call for an unconditional ceasefire. What actions would you support now?

Allred: What I've always said is that we need to bring the hostages home and have an end to the conflict. What I think is sometimes lost in the conversation about the tragedy in Gaza is the fact that Hamas is still holding over 100 hostages, and that this has to be part of an agreement that has to be struck.

I'm on the Foreign Affairs Committee, and I've spent a lot of time in the region. I've met with Prime Minister Netanyahu several times. I am a supporter of the U.S.-Israel relationship. I am not a supporter of his actions in Gaza… and the conflict as it’s being pursued now is not in the interest of Israel either.

What we have to do is continue to put forward the plan for not only the end of this conflict, but what comes next. I do think that the (Biden) administration has done that. We've laid out a pretty detailed plan of how this conflict can come to an end, and also the beginning steps of what rebuilding and the pathway towards a two-state solution can be. But we are not the deciding party, unfortunately. Otherwise, I think this would have been settled already.

This involves a terrorist organization in Hamas who has an interest in increased civilian casualties and who hides among the civilian population, and part of their battle plan is that they're going to use civilians as a shield. We also have in Netanyahu and the current Israeli government folks who have not pursued the release of the hostages and the ending of the conflict with nearly as much effort as I would want to see.

What we need to do now is use every lever we have to try and encourage both of these parties to reach an agreement. We have more levers than just our aid that have to be used. This conflict has gone on far too long. There's no more practical military goal that Israel can achieve in Gaza and Hamas’ ability to commit an Oct.t 7 style attack has been completely decimated.

But let me be clear, some things that we provide to Israel are defensive in nature. For example, when there's rocket attacks from Hezbollah, some of our military aid goes to tools like the Iron Dome system that intercept attacks, save lives, and reduce the chance of escalation. Our priority has to be to provide Israel with what they need to be safe and secure. However, if we can create diplomatic pressure, or there are things that can be specifically withheld to influence this situation, we should try and apply that pressure. But It’s not a straightforward situation where you withhold military aid and the conflict ends. This has to be a multi-faceted approach.

I want to see an independent and peaceful Palestinian state next to a stable, secure Jewish democratic state in Israel. That has to be the end goal. Right now, I think we're working every single day towards that. I've been a part of some of these discussions on the Foreign Affairs Committee, but fundamentally, we have to get these parties to agree to it. That means having the leaders in place who will reach the agreement and can execute it.

 

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Posted
1 hour ago, InkaUtexas said:

The first said no, any good Israeli (notice the word good) will support Bibi and his actions. They are in the interest of the state. The state must eliminate any and all threats and expand to provide land for the new people. Actions must continue until every Israeli is safe.

This person sounds like a fucking asshole. 

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