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Article on the internal debate on how hard to go in and how long to stay. Discussions on what the IDF has done in the past in Gaza. Serious "this time is different" vibes, but we knew that. Ends with a rather ominous quote from the past and also a strong reminder.

 

As Israel Prepares for War in Gaza, Debate Is Over How and How Long
The country’s new unity government agrees that Hamas must be destroyed so it can never attack Israel again, but there is little appetite for a reoccupation.

Israel, already bombing intensively in Gaza, is gearing up for a major military operation there unlike any in the past, warning the world that for Israel, after the massacre of its citizens by Hamas on Saturday, the rules have changed.

“Every Hamas member is marked by death,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Wednesday night, reflecting the government’s aggressive new vocabulary. On Thursday, standing with the U.S. secretary of state, Antony J. Blinken, he compared Hamas to the Islamic State and said: “Hamas is ISIS, and just as ISIS was crushed, so too will Hamas be crushed.”

There is little discussion in the new unity government, which must approve the military’s plans, on the need to dismantle Hamas — to ensure that it can never threaten Israel again and that those responsible for the killing of more than 1,200 Israeli civilians are hunted down, officials say.

That a major operation is coming is hardly in doubt. Already, near the border, there are massive, overt Israeli troop and tank deployments, and the country has called up 360,000 reservists.

But there are tactical arguments over how any operation should start, whether it will begin massively or with raiding parties, and how to coordinate Israel’s overwhelming strength in land, sea and especially air power, said Yaakov Amidror, a retired major general who served as national security adviser to Mr. Netanyahu in an earlier government and has spoken to government officials.

There is of course also the issue of how best to encourage civilians to move out of the densely populated cities to safer ground, he added. And hanging over everything is the question of how long Israeli forces would stay.

“There is not one member of the cabinet who does not agree that Hamas must be smashed to ashes,” Mr. Amidror said. “How long it takes, the methods, how to minimize the number of civilian casualties, this is the dialogue.”

“If we have to take the whole Gaza Strip, we will do it slowly but surely, even if it takes six months,” he added, echoing what senior officers have said.

But there is little appetite for Israel to reoccupy the Gaza Strip, said Itamar Yaar, who helped plan Israel’s withdrawal of soldiers and citizens from Gaza in 2005 as deputy head of the National Security Council.

“Ground activity is not an end — it is a means” to achieve the political goal of ensuring that Hamas can never attack Israelis again, since that will be impossible only by air power, said Mr. Yaar, still a colonel in the reserves. But he warned that responsibility for governing the 2.3 million people in Gaza “is not good for us, and not for them.”

cont'd:

Spoiler

Ground operations will be varied, he suggested — taking over some territory, creating a buffer between different areas, doing raids based on intelligence and interrogations, trying to find and save hostages and trying to find and kill Hamas soldiers.

It is also clear to everyone, he said, “that a ground operation will have a high price in Palestinian lives and in Israeli casualties.”

The failure of the vaunted Israeli intelligence services and military to predict and confront the Hamas invasion has provided an important cautionary note, according to two defense officials who took part in meetings about the possibility of a ground invasion and who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject.

Some senior officials questioned whether the army is capable of effectively conducting a fierce war against a decently equipped and trained guerrilla movement in a built-up area that is their own, the defense officials said.

But a failure to respond effectively to Hamas could create an “existential danger” for Israel, losing its deterrence in the larger Mideast, one official said, let alone, the second official said, destroying the vital covenant the state has to protect its citizens.

“The IDF is responsible for the security of the country and its citizens,” the chief of general staff for Israel, Gen. Herzi Halevi, said on Thursday, “and on Saturday, we did not live up to that.”

But the leap over the past is considerable. This time Israel must put aside some traditional values — that Israeli hostages must be protected and returned, that the lives of soldiers are precious and that Israel as a democracy strives to avoid international prosecution and calumny.

This time, the officials suggest, Israel must defeat Hamas even at the cost of its hostages and its soldiers and an extensive bombing campaign that is already causing hundreds of civilian deaths in Gaza.

In previous conflicts with Hamas in Gaza, but especially in 2009, there were significant debates about whether to reoccupy the territory and destroy Hamas, said Ofer Shelah, a former legislator and a senior researcher at the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv.

In 2009, the Israeli infantry entered Gaza and progressed so well and with so few casualties that the government of Ehud Olmert, the prime minister at the time, split over whether to continue the operation.

Mr. Olmert and Yoav Gallant, then head of the Southern Command and now the current defense minister, wanted to continue, Mr. Shelah said. Others, like Ehud Barak, the defense minister at the time, successfully argued that enough damage had been done and that Israel did not want to retain responsibility for the welfare of the Palestinians there.

There was a similar debate in the 2014 conflict with Gaza, which also saw a ground invasion by Israel and cost more Israeli lives than in 2009, with pressure on the government to retake Gaza or parts of it.

The military briefed the security cabinet then on the likely consequences. The predictions were many hundreds of dead soldiers and close to 10,000 dead Palestinians, said Udi Segal, the reporter who broke the story. The military said peace agreements with Egypt and Jordan could be at risk and the financial cost of controlling Gaza would be massive, Mr. Segal said in an interview.

The suspicion has always been that Mr. Netanyahu leaked the news of the briefing to bring some realism to the cost of a Gaza reoccupation. Mr. Segal will not disclose his source.

“I think the price today will be heavier than what was estimated then,” Mr. Segal said. “That still doesn’t mean that Israel won’t be forced to do it. All the previous moves were made with the thought that Hamas is not only a terrorist organization but also a government that can be reasoned with. Not anymore.”

The question is whether Israel will continue to try as hard as it has in the past — critics say, with little success — to obey the international rules of war against harming civilians.

President Biden has cautioned Mr. Netanyahu to respect the Geneva Convention and the rules of war, but Israel has already decided to cut off Gazans from electricity and water and bombed the official Rafah crossing to Egypt.

Israel has also announced that it will no longer alert residents of a building about to be bombed by dropping a nonexplosive projectile on the roof to warn them. Instead, it told Gazans to leave buildings that they know contain Hamas operatives or weapons, arguing that the convention permits the targeting of military objectives.

Israel is also being pushed to set up a humanitarian corridor to get urgently needed aid into Gaza, but that decision has not yet been made, according to Lt. Col. Richard Hecht, an army spokesman.

And Qatar, which has helped fund Gaza, is trying to set up a diplomatic channel to discuss the release of hostages by Hamas and a de-escalation. But a diplomat briefed on the talks, speaking on the condition of anonymity to avoid disrupting sensitive negotiations, said that neither side is interested in de-escalation now, and that the Israelis will not discuss anything until the women and children are released.

As for what may come afterward for Gaza, some point to 2002, when Israeli troops took over large areas of the occupied West Bank in difficult fighting during the second intifada, the largest Israeli military operation there since the 1967 war. Israeli troops finally withdrew from the cities and helped to strengthen the hold of the Palestinian Authority there.

But Gaza, said Mr. Amidror, is different; Israel has no interest in holding on to it and its population. Mr. Shelah suggests that it might be possible for the United States to organize a regional coalition to help Gaza including Egypt, the Gulf States and even Saudi Arabia, or to help restore the Palestinian Authority to power there.

But destroying Hamas entirely is a fool’s errand, said Mr. Yaar. “Hamas is a collection of people with religious faith, and this belief cannot be erased. What is possible is to damage their abilities.”

In 1956, Palestinian guerrillas attacked farmers in the fields of Nahal Oz, an Israeli kibbutz near Gaza, and killed and mutilated a young first lieutenant. The same kibbutz lost many people to Hamas last Saturday.

Then, Moshe Dayan, the prominent Israeli commander who was the chief of staff, gave a famous eulogy, in which he acknowledged that Israeli settlers were inspiring “potent hatred” among those “sitting in the refugee camps in Gaza,” because “before their eyes we have been turning the land and villages in which they and their forefathers lived into our own inheritance.”

He continued: “We are the generation of settlement, and without steel helmets and the maw of the cannon we will not be able to plant a tree or build a home.”

Their lives, more than anything, depended on their ability to defend themselves against the Arabs who wished to kill them, he said in summary. All the rest — development, the economy, society, and culture — were subordinate and must bend to the needs of security and survival.

Israel is today remembering his words.

 

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48 minutes ago, AnTiM said:

Argue all you like, there will be no peace until all of one side or the other are dead or leave the area.  Like it or don't, that is simply the sorry assed fact. 

This is such a horse shit take and I'm honestly so sick of reading it in this thread and elsewhere.

The hatred experienced on both sides has been slowly building over the past hundred years. It is learned behavior. Palestinians don't have hatred for Jews and a primal need to kill them baked into their fucking DNA, and Israelis don't have the primal need to oppress or kill Palestinians baked into theirs. This is all learned behavior. It can very goddamned well be unlearned. It is not an easy thing at all, and it absolutely would take a lot of time (decades) and concessions that the current Israeli government led by this coalition of absolute psychos is not likely to be willing to make on their own, but it abso-fucking-lutely can be done.

When you say shit like this, you know exactly what you're saying. Israelis won't leave and the Palestinians can't. There's only one side that has the capability to wipe out the other. You know what you're saying. It's probably not intentional, but it's there.

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Republican on Republican violence.  You hate to see it:

 

Glad to see you’re holding up well, all things considered.

 
I love history and politics (unfortunately on that last one) and I will tell you that even I’m surprised at the levels of anti-Semitism in America.  I’m not naive, I know it’s always been there but I’m surprised about the level.  (Like that dipshit Kanye West.)  I thought it was relegated to dark corners of the world and maybe some wing nuts in the US but over the last few years, I’ve learned I was wrong.
 
Just know we’re thinking of you.  Let us know if you need anything of just want t
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7 hours ago, longhornmatt said:

That’s pretty weak.  The issue is whether credible news sources corroborate it and report it as fact, not whether it’s been 3 days or 3 hours.  And the idea that 3 days is not enough time for anyone to possibly verify something like this or for readers to entertain that it might be true is ludicrous.  Do you dismiss all reported murder stories by legitimate news sources for a period longer than 3 days?  “Hold on, now.  I won’t accept that George Floyd was killed in that manner until at least 1 month has passed since the story broke.”

Pay attention to how it works. “I will concede that Hamas committed generalized atrocities but I will not concede that any specific atrocity likely happened until [insert standard of specificity and truth required of nothing else] and moreover anyone who does is engaging in propaganda.” 

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Tell me how this goes:

I concede Hamas has a valid complaint.

I acknowledge their ability to protest.

I acknowledge there is no solution to their land and my land being the same land.

...

I know they will never, ever accept my right to exist. They tell me this. 

They tell me they would rather kill me than live themselves. Wow. 

What is my solution?

Kill them. 

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6 hours ago, 956 Worldwide said:

That’s not you, and information sanitation is important.  

 

24 minutes ago, 956 Worldwide said:

Pay attention to how it works. “I will concede that Hamas committed generalized atrocities but I will not concede that any specific atrocity likely happened until [insert standard of specificity and truth required of nothing else] and moreover anyone who does is engaging in propaganda.” 

What the fuck? Try to be consistent, for Christ’s sake. 

You’re too worldly to be unfamiliar with atrocity propaganda, how it works, and why it is problematic even when seemingly only a slight exaggeration of actual (but because of weird human nature, more banal) atrocities. And you admit that “information sanitation” is good practice. But you jump very quickly to paint such cautious reactions as disguised propaganda in their own right, which is flat-out false.

There is no one-sidedness present to the questioning of propaganda on this board. The fake news streaming out from the Hamas side has been vociferously and rightly called out as BS, definitively. No one has said anything so definitive about the potential Israeli propaganda because (1) it’s not as clear that it actually IS propaganda and (2) if the claims ARE inaccurate, unlike the Hamas videos, etc., they are far more likely to be inadvertent and a result of a game of telephone played in the fog of war. 

So no. Unlike my agreement with those who have called bullshit on numerous  videos claiming wrongly to show civilian Palestinian casualties, I’m not going to jump to say that the mass rape and baby beheading claims are definitely 100% BS. Because they may not be, and we probably won’t know for sure for a long time.

So… how again is that one-sided against Israel?

Edited by BrickHorn
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10 minutes ago, BrickHorn said:

 

What the fuck? Try to be consistent, for Christ’s sake. 

You’re too worldly to be unfamiliar with atrocity propaganda, how it works, and why it is problematic even when seemingly only a slight exaggeration of actual (but because of weird human nature, more banal) atrocities. And you admit that “information sanitation” is good practice. But you jump very quickly to paint such cautious reactions as disguised propaganda in their own right, which is flat-out false.

There is no one-sidedness present to the questioning of propaganda on this board. The fake news streaming out from the Hamas side has been vociferously and rightly called out as BS, definitively. No one has said anything so definitive about the potential Israeli propaganda because (1) it’s not as clear that it actually IS propaganda and (2) if the claims ARE inaccurate, unlike the Hamas videos, etc., they are far more likely to be inadvertent and a result of a game of telephone played in the fog of war. 

So no. Unlike my agreement with those who have called bullshit on numerous  videos claiming wrongly to show civilian Palestinian casualties, I’m not going to jump to say that the mass rape and baby beheading claims are definitely 100% BS. Because they may not be, and we probably won’t know for sure for a long time.

So… how again is that one-sided against Israel?

Here is where I’m going with this. On this thread we have different posters that have called out the following sources a problematic and possible propaganda.  Not all people have said the same things but let’s sum them up and look at it as a whole. 

- The Times of London, citing first responders. Or maybe just a specific Times of London reporter for unspecified reasons. 

- The Israeli government/IDF/PM (with photos) 

- Credible news sources (although they sort things out over time) 

Again, this is a compilation and there’s not one poster who objects to every single one of them. But if you look at the above, non-comprehensive list you’ll see that we’ve argued our way into basically treating all formerly decent sources of information with extreme skepticism. And once you get yourself there, you have gotten to where it’s all just vibes for the most part. 
 

Which is in itself a desired outcome for certain actors in the information space, and it’s a tactic that’s been super successful.
 

I will go out on a limb here and make my argument: A person who picks up the Times of London every day and believes each hard news item he reads is going to at some point believe some bad information. But that person is going to build an overall worldview that corresponds to reality better than someone who approaches everything they write as potential propaganda. There’s a bit of friend/foe identification here. 

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1 hour ago, Brian Fantana said:

This is such a horse shit take and I'm honestly so sick of reading it in this thread and elsewhere.

The hatred experienced on both sides has been slowly building over the past hundred years. It is learned behavior. Palestinians don't have hatred for Jews and a primal need to kill them baked into their fucking DNA, and Israelis don't have the primal need to oppress or kill Palestinians baked into theirs. This is all learned behavior. It can very goddamned well be unlearned. It is not an easy thing at all, and it absolutely would take a lot of time (decades) and concessions that the current Israeli government led by this coalition of absolute psychos is not likely to be willing to make on their own, but it abso-fucking-lutely can be done.

When you say shit like this, you know exactly what you're saying. Israelis won't leave and the Palestinians can't. There's only one side that has the capability to wipe out the other. You know what you're saying. It's probably not intentional, but it's there.

#1 Both sides in this argument is absolutely NOT the fucking same. Plenty of issues with Israel and their treatment of Palestinians, not going to say otherwise, but they aren’t too much worse than say the issues between black Americans and the police in the US, which is really bad for a Westernized civilized society. HOWEVER the other side is so fucking far off the reservation that it is extremely disingenuous to compare the two wrongs together. It’s like comparing someone who runs a red light to someone who beats his wife and claiming both a criminals.

#2 Go watch that video of the children proclaiming they want to stab the Jews or wear a suicide vest to kill the Jews and talk to a children psychologist and tell me how that can be UNLEARNED. Literally generation after generations have been brainwashed. Sure if the child is moved to a North American/European country and separated from their family/friends/community and put through a significant amount of therapy/reeducation, maybe a single individual COULD be deprogrammed and become a well balanced human capable of living in/near Israel, but how the fuck are you going to do that for all adolescents in an area of 2 million people (just Gaza)? I’m not advocating for solution here because there really ISNT a solution here that isn’t absolutely atrocious.

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33 minutes ago, 956 Worldwide said:

Here is where I’m going with this. On this thread we have different posters that have called out the following sources a problematic and possible propaganda.  Not all people have said the same things but let’s sum them up and look at it as a whole. 

- The Times of London, citing first responders. Or maybe just a specific Times of London reporter for unspecified reasons. 

- The Israeli government/IDF/PM (with photos) 

- Credible news sources (although they sort things out over time) 

Again, this is a compilation and there’s not one poster who objects to every single one of them. But if you look at the above, non-comprehensive list you’ll see that we’ve argued our way into basically treating all formerly decent sources of information with extreme skepticism. And once you get yourself there, you have gotten to where it’s all just vibes for the most part. 
 

Which is in itself a desired outcome for certain actors in the information space, and it’s a tactic that’s been super successful.
 

I will go out on a limb here and make my argument: A person who picks up the Times of London every day and believes each hard news item he reads is going to at some point believe some bad information. But that person is going to build an overall worldview that corresponds to reality better than someone who approaches everything they write as potential propaganda. There’s a bit of friend/foe identification here. 

That’s a bullshit response. It ignores the long history of stories almost identical to these proving to be atrocity propaganda and the reasons WHY exactly these stories become that (it’s the same reason why these stories spread like wildfire this week - they grab attention). And it ignores the actual conversation about this topic on this thread. You’re all over the map.

I’m done with this whipsaw of a debate. My last comment on it will be a summary of where I stand more broadly on this week’s events:

- Hamas’s attack was mass murder, full stop. Something must be done to bring justice to those responsible and prevent such atrocities in the future. What that something is I have no clue.

- I am deeply saddened for what I expect will result from the response, which is further bloodshed and further entrenchment of the hatred and distrust between Israelis and Palestinians, which will inevitably prolong the cycle of violence. 

- The infosphere is currently full of propaganda. I haven’t done a survey, but my general sense is the bulk of the propaganda circulating at this point is pro-Hamas, in the form of videos of different incidents being falsely attributed to the Israeli bombings. 

- The stories of Hamas beheading infants and engaging in rape are of a genre that frequently proves to be atrocity propaganda. This is not necessarily purposeful propaganda. It often results from inadvertent exaggeration and is spread by rumor. It is unclear whether these claims are true in this case and, based on the history of similar claims, we won’t know until the dust settles. That mass media outlets have reported these stories does not resolve the matter; atrocity propaganda often propagates through credible media. 

- The truth or falsity of the stories has no bearing on how I view the Hamas attack, but claims of this sort inflame emotions and often serve to make matters worse. And at times like these, we need more humanity and empathy, not less. Unfortunately, that’s not how mankind works. 

 

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11 minutes ago, TKthunder2 said:

#1 Both sides in this argument is absolutely NOT the fucking same. Plenty of issues with Israel and their treatment of Palestinians, not going to say otherwise, but they aren’t too much worse than say the issues between black Americans and the police in the US, which is really bad for a Westernized civilized society. HOWEVER the other side is so fucking far off the reservation that it is extremely disingenuous to compare the two wrongs together. It’s like comparing someone who runs a red light to someone who beats his wife and claiming both a criminals.

My guy you are out of your mind and you clearly have an incredibly whitewashed understanding of this conflict. What a completely fucking delusional take.

15 minutes ago, TKthunder2 said:

#2 Go watch that video of the children proclaiming they want to stab the Jews or wear a suicide vest to kill the Jews and talk to a children psychologist and tell me how that can be UNLEARNED. Literally generation after generations have been brainwashed. Sure if the child is moved to a North American/European country and separated from their family/friends/community and put through a significant amount of therapy/reeducation, maybe a single individual COULD be deprogrammed and become a well balanced human capable of living in/near Israel, but how the fuck are you going to do that for all adolescents in an area of 2 million people (just Gaza)? I’m not advocating for solution here because there really ISNT a solution here that isn’t absolutely atrocious.

You do not need to be brainwashed to hate or feel like you want to kill your oppressors, it's just basic fucking human nature. There are solutions that aren't absolutely atrocious. They're just not easy or quick. We don't need to wipe out the Palestinians and start over. I know you don't think that's what you're advocating for, but you are. You're just lying to yourself about what the purpose of your rationalizations are.

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10 minutes ago, BrickHorn said:

That’s a bullshit response. It ignores the long history of stories almost identical to these proving to be atrocity propaganda and the reasons WHY exactly these stories become that (it’s the same reason why these stories spread like wildfire this week - they grab attention). And it ignores the actual conversation about this topic on this thread. You’re all over the map.

 

 

 

And there is an almost equal number of atrocious stories that turned out to be absolutely true and yet were at the time they broke  denied or treated with skepticism or in between by actors both malicious and well-meaning: 

- The Holocaust and gas chambers

- The Holodomor 

- Stalin’s Great Terror 

- The massacre of Polish officers at Katyn 

- Cambodia’s killing fields 

- Srebrenica 

- Bucha 

It’s hard to say if you add up the history what’s more common. 

The most common analogy I’ve seen is the “babies in incubators” claim.  But the stories and how they developed are not close to similar at all.  The baby in incubator story originated from a Kuwaiti health official who sent a letter that first surfaced about a month after it originally happened. 
 

The story of the horrors at the kibbutz originated from multiple reporters, on the ground, standing outside the kibbutz where it happened and transcribing the words of multiple eyewitnesses and first responders. 

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13 minutes ago, Anastasis said:

CNN reported that UN told to evacuate north strip within 24 hours. Looks like the ground invasion is on. 

Not really possible to evacuate 1.2 million people in 24 hours, especially considering they have nowhere to go, but I'm sure Netanyahu is counting on that.

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18 minutes ago, Brian Fantana said:

Not really possible to evacuate 1.2 million people in 24 hours, especially considering they have nowhere to go, but I'm sure Netanyahu is counting on that.

He is counting on that and a measure of manufactured consent for what we are about to see. 

Edited by Anastasis
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4 minutes ago, Dbeasy said:

How does Israel find Hamas members/fighters? Won’t they just blend into the population? Won’t many leave with innocent civilians? I don’t understand how this ground invasion will actually work. 

I think you know and you'll see a lot of shitty people cheering it on.

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49 minutes ago, Brian Fantana said:

My guy you are out of your mind and you clearly have an incredibly whitewashed understanding of this conflict. What a completely fucking delusional take.

You do not need to be brainwashed to hate or feel like you want to kill your oppressors, it's just basic fucking human nature. There are solutions that aren't absolutely atrocious. They're just not easy or quick. We don't need to wipe out the Palestinians and start over. I know you don't think that's what you're advocating for, but you are. You're just lying to yourself about what the purpose of your rationalizations are.

I understand the conflict very well, but to each their own. Israel, England, the West, and the powers of the ME all have significant blame/ownership in this situation and how it came to be. Israel has systematically oppressed and abused the Palestinians through their power and stewardship for decades and has repeatedly inflamed the situation time after time…HOWEVER Hamas has committed absolute atrocities that do not compare. Hamas routinely fires rockets into civilian populations which we consider commonplace (can you image how the U.S. would react if rockets were fired in NY?). If you judge each by their sins alone it’s obvious which group is the most evil.

Unlike some of the geopolitical geniuses on this board, I am aware of my shortcomings and can admit to myself that while I feel pretty informed on this issue, I am by no means an expert in this area. If there was a simple solution it would have been pushed by others. A two state solution has been promoted multiple times and has failed every time, so if you assume that is off the table (as is the abandonment of Israel by the Jewish people) what solution is there left that does not end up with either reverting back to the status quo and inviting another Hamas attack, or a forced migration out of Gaza? If you have a solution, other than the generic get rid of Hamas a free the people of Palestine, I am truly interested to hear it.

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52 minutes ago, Dbeasy said:

How does Israel find Hamas members/fighters? Won’t they just blend into the population? Won’t many leave with innocent civilians? I don’t understand how this ground invasion will actually work. 

I believe I could identify any Trumper from a line up. ANY line up. Worn and weary, trying to look younger than they are, loud, suspicious, angry....

You know who you are. So do we. You're not fooling anyone. 

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On 10/11/2023 at 6:27 PM, CoTex said:

Dumb question here goes -

 

is there ever a time when you just admit defeat, take the loss, and move on?

Let’s say I’m Joe Palestinian.  I’ve got a wife and two kids.  I can try to gtfo and go to Egypt, America, who knows.  Anywhere but the place where I’m not prospering because … complicated reasons.  If I pull the trigger on that decision I’m subjecting my family to stress, uncertainty, and distance from all things known - family, language, culture.  But I’m also giving them hope.

Alternatively I can dig in and say “my land, not fair, father’s heritage, never say die.  My children’s hope then depends on a successful war and eradication of an enemy or, if not that, at least a good enough showing at war that I get some kind of Korea armistice.

If i’m Joe, im saving up $5,000 and gtfo.

What am I missing?

Your religion telling you, additionally, that it's all wrong because dirty Jews did it and, many countries and political extensions of those countries manipulating you to dig in and say “my land, not fair, father’s heritage, never say die," again because dirty Jews.

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8 hours ago, Brian Fantana said:

This is such a horse shit take and I'm honestly so sick of reading it in this thread and elsewhere.

The hatred experienced on both sides has been slowly building over the past hundred years. It is learned behavior. Palestinians don't have hatred for Jews and a primal need to kill them baked into their fucking DNA, and Israelis don't have the primal need to oppress or kill Palestinians baked into theirs. This is all learned behavior. It can very goddamned well be unlearned. It is not an easy thing at all, and it absolutely would take a lot of time (decades) and concessions that the current Israeli government led by this coalition of absolute psychos is not likely to be willing to make on their own, but it abso-fucking-lutely can be done.

When you say shit like this, you know exactly what you're saying. Israelis won't leave and the Palestinians can't. There's only one side that has the capability to wipe out the other. You know what you're saying. It's probably not intentional, but it's there.

So if Israel leaves the area, that would not help the problem.  Now who is saying shit like this.

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8 hours ago, 956 Worldwide said:

I will go out on a limb here and make my argument: A person who picks up the Times of London every day and believes each hard news item he reads is going to at some point believe some bad information. But that person is going to build an overall worldview that corresponds to reality better than someone who approaches everything they write as potential propaganda. There’s a bit of friend/foe identification here. 

I'll preface by saying I'm a Times subscriber and I read daily. But I would say this is a mischaracterization. I can't remember where I was talking about this recently, but you trust people, not companies. You linked a credible journalist, I would agree, but for someone who doesn't know that guy from Adam, they are totally right to question it. Being published in the Times doesn't mean someone is worth listening to.

 

Honestly, I howl at least once a day by something I see on the Times homepage. Usually related to US politics.

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6 hours ago, Willfully Horn said:

"Our Land" music video

Lyrics in English:

Quote
Where are you going? Where?
I'm going with myself from east to south
 
Where are you going? Where?
I'm going with myself from south to west
 
Where are you going? Where?
I'm going with myself from west to north
 
There he comes running
With the flag in his hands
My land, my land
 
Here you are in my land
My land, my land
 
Here you are in my land
My land, my land
 
Where are you going? Where?
I'm going with myself from north to east
 
Where are you going? Where?
I'm going with myself from east to west
 
Where are you going? Where?
I'm going alone from land to land.
 
And nothing and no one
Invites me to stay
My land, my land
 
Here you are in my land
My land, my land
 
Here you are in my land
My waves and my shore
Yeeeeeeeaaaaaaaah
 
A voice out of the light
Falls out off the sky's face
Tears apart the horizon
Where do you go to, here is no space left for you
 
This is my land
This is my land
This is my land
 
My land, my land
Here you are in my land
 
My land, my land
Here you are in my land
My waves and my shore
My land
 
Banished, my land
Banishing, my land
Forgotten, my land
I've got no place to stay
My land

 

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7 hours ago, Welshy said:

I believe I could identify any Trumper from a line up. ANY line up. Worn and weary, trying to look younger than they are, loud, suspicious, angry....

You know who you are. So do we. You're not fooling anyone. 

I can identify every aggy in a room. No cheating by looking for aggy rings either. 100%, without fail, every single time. There is a certain misplaced confidence, like a proud cow that doesn’t know it’s about to get an air gun to the back of the head. 

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@Macklemore your racism schtick about a 5th column of Arabs and Muslims taking down America is outrageous and I'm amazed that @immamac has let you shit on his board in that way for so long. Especially even moreso when YOUR FUCKING PARTY is actively blocking US military promotions and imperiling the stability of our service members lives by fucking with the pay vis a vis budget fuck fuck games. 

Quit trying to derail the DT thread by interjecting your self hating racism. Stop being a pussy and post your shit in a place where people can reply without Blacklab punishing them

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6 minutes ago, Captainant said:

@Macklemore your racism schtick about a 5th column of Arabs and Muslims taking down America is outrageous and I'm amazed that @immamac has let you shit on his board in that way for so long. Especially even moreso when YOUR FUCKING PARTY is actively blocking US military promotions and imperiling the stability of our service members lives by fucking with the pay vis a vis budget fuck fuck games. 

Quit trying to derail the DT thread by interjecting your self hating racism. Stop being a pussy and post your shit in a place where people can reply without Blacklab punishing them

I have been guilty of fearing Muslim immigration because of many of the toxic traits of fundamentalist Islam.

I still think there is a tiny kernel of truth there, but not so much in the US.  Events subsequent to 9/11 have shown that Muslim immigrants here do not pose much of an existential threat.  And, also that Christian fundamentalism is damn near as dangerous, if not moreso.

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5 minutes ago, wildcat09 said:

Christian fundamentalism is by any measure substantially more dangerous to Americans than Islamist fundamentalism. There's many millions more of them, they have the sympathies of law enforcement all around the country, and they hold serious political power. 

They are blocking THOUSANDS of officers promotions because of fundamentalist extremist christian beliefs. That's materially harming the readiness of our military. 

 

But mooslims amirite???

 

It's like a chunk of posters who want to MAGA never left 2001-2003 America. 

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12 minutes ago, wildcat09 said:

Christian fundamentalism is by any measure substantially more dangerous to Americans than Islamist fundamentalism. There's many millions more of them, they have the sympathies of law enforcement all around the country, and they hold serious political power. 

We are hell of a lot closer to Handmaid’s Tale than Sharia Law. But one political party is gaslighting people into thinking we are one election cycle away from praying to Allah and outlawing pork 

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52 minutes ago, Captainant said:

@Macklemore your racism schtick about a 5th column of Arabs and Muslims taking down America is outrageous and I'm amazed that @immamac has let you shit on his board in that way for so long. Especially even moreso when YOUR FUCKING PARTY is actively blocking US military promotions and imperiling the stability of our service members lives by fucking with the pay vis a vis budget fuck fuck games. 

Quit trying to derail the DT thread by interjecting your self hating racism. Stop being a pussy and post your shit in a place where people can reply without Blacklab punishing them

Why the fuck would you invite Icono here? Second time this month I’ve had to post this

Its Showtime Halloween GIF by Death Wish Coffee

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