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SmokeyBear1861

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4 hours ago, 956 Worldwide said:

You have nothing to add to any discussion except pure edgelord bullshit and defense of Kremlin shit, every time. You’re a troll who carries their water. 

 

4 hours ago, Anastasis said:

You've been part of the political discussion on these boards since what, late 2020? I am unsurprised that you feel secure in making an assessment of anything given that window. Matches up well with the short attention span expectation. 

Narcissists attack.

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It’s funny how folks in Congress are asking for a ceasefire.
 

After our “9/11” the US went to war for 20 years across two countries with estimates of over 400k civilians killed. 
 

It took the US ~10 years to find the ring leader of our attacks and we went so far as to sneak into a “neutral” third country to kill him. 
 

The fact that the US wants to lecture is just so classic an American thing to do it’s just amazing  

 

 


 

 

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14 hours ago, Hermanator said:

Israel's in a catch 22. Don't allow humanitarian aid to the millions of Palestinians who had no part in attacking them and they'll be seen as sadistic ghouls the world over. They also risk waning US support as Biden can't be seen as the president siding with genocide in an election year. 

I feel they may be on the cusp of making similar mistakes as the US after 9/11. Initial support at being the victim of attack flips when you spend years invading lands and killing women and children. There really isn't any good course of action, ol' Benji fucked up by falling asleep at the wheel and allowing their defenses to be defeated that easily and severely. 

Americans were overwhelmingly in support of efforts to root out terrorism in the middle east after 9/11. Public support faded when it became full scale wars against Iraq and Afghanistan. It's obviously difficult to root out individuals and terrorist cells as opposed to flighting state armies, but that's the reality of the situation in that region and should be waged as such, in my opinion.

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17 hours ago, MC Fresh Breath said:

Learning about US aided genocide can be troubling.

 

But like all of us here actually, we can't make much impact.  As there is complete bi-partisan agreement (re: the masters want it). edit: last few minutes of this one are a bit to polly-ana-ish for me.  Money and might rule all.

 

The lack of true power and impact we all have in this duopoly can be frustrating for sure.  

Perhaps contributing to humanitarian causes is the way to go.  I give to this one:

https://www.anera.org/

 

Hard to swallow pills but necessary.

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56 minutes ago, chainsaw said:

Hard to swallow pills but necessary.

Genocide? Please. 
 
The Holocaust was attempted genocide against the Jewish people. 
 
What Turkey tried to do to the Armenians was attempted genocide. 
 
What the Hutus tried to do to the Tutsis was attempted genocide. 
 
Israel is not attempting anything like genocide. Calling it genocide is a form of anti-semitism, implying these accusers learned more from the Holocaust than the Jews did. 

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23 minutes ago, statsman said:

Genocide? Please. 
 
The Holocaust was attempted genocide against the Jewish people. 
 
What Turkey tried to do to the Armenians was attempted genocide. 
 
What the Hutus tried to do to the Tutsis was attempted genocide. 
 
Israel is not attempting anything like genocide. Calling it genocide is a form of anti-semitism, implying these accusers learned more from the Holocaust than the Jews did. 

Oh for fuck's sake, these takes are getting more and more ridiculous. I frankly am not interested in arguing over what level of killing innocent people rises to the definition of "genocide" but it is not a goddanm form of anti-semitism to call it that as used in common discussion. I am not even saying Israel should or should not be doing what they are doing but you continuously conflate criticism of Israel with anti-semitic views. They can overlap of course, but are not one and the same.

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26 minutes ago, statsman said:

Genocide? Please. 
 
The Holocaust was attempted genocide against the Jewish people. 
 
What Turkey tried to do to the Armenians was attempted genocide. 
 
What the Hutus tried to do to the Tutsis was attempted genocide. 
 
Israel is not attempting anything like genocide. Calling it genocide is a form of anti-semitism, implying these accusers learned more from the Holocaust than the Jews did. 

A piece put out this week by a sociologist and genocide scholar. You might find it interesting. Just the closing paragraph below, but the article is worth a quick read in whole. 

https://newlinesmag.com/spotlight/the-uses-and-abuses-of-the-term-genocide-in-gaza/

“Genocide” is generally under-deployed because states wish to avoid the responsibilities to “prevent and punish” that the convention imposes on signatories, but there is a special aversion to investigating its implications for Israel’s conduct. Western states continue to protect it out of a misplaced belief that Jews, having been prime historical victims of genocide, cannot also be its perpetrators. Israel’s current policies are rapidly destroying that conceit, however, and bringing closer the day when its leaders — as well as those of Hamas — will be brought to account for their crimes.

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1 minute ago, Serak The Preparer said:

Oh for fuck's sake, these takes are getting more and more ridiculous.

You are talking to a poster that kept clamoring about the "Rule of Law" in the context of illegal Israeli settlements and occupation. I'd say it started with ridiculous straight off the bat. 

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1 hour ago, mdmost said:

Nice echo chamber you built for yourself. 

Doubling down on stuff that’s both demonstrably full of untruths and also clearly foreign-origin autocratic agitprop is brainwormy behavior.

LOL at Zionist being a slur, I do indeed openly support a Jewish-character independent nation in the Levant. 

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Funny how many useful idiots love to sign themselves up for russian propaganda or even when it is exposed as such, refuse to acknowledge it and double down.    

Had they been born in Oklahoma they would be telling themselves and us that Texas is just as dirty as OU, LSU and UGA.  

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57 minutes ago, Anastasis said:

A piece put out this week by a sociologist and genocide scholar. You might find it interesting. Just the closing paragraph below, but the article is worth a quick read in whole. 

https://newlinesmag.com/spotlight/the-uses-and-abuses-of-the-term-genocide-in-gaza/

“Genocide” is generally under-deployed because states wish to avoid the responsibilities to “prevent and punish” that the convention imposes on signatories, but there is a special aversion to investigating its implications for Israel’s conduct. Western states continue to protect it out of a misplaced belief that Jews, having been prime historical victims of genocide, cannot also be its perpetrators. Israel’s current policies are rapidly destroying that conceit, however, and bringing closer the day when its leaders — as well as those of Hamas — will be brought to account for their crimes.

But that’s not true. There is no special aversion to using it wrt Israel. It happens all the time! In this thread! Anti-Israelis and anti-Semites like to use it to refer to Israeli policies, because they believe its application reduces the ability of Jews to be victims of anti-semitism. 

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1 hour ago, statsman said:

Genocide? Please. 
 
The Holocaust was attempted genocide against the Jewish people. 
 
What Turkey tried to do to the Armenians was attempted genocide
 
What the Hutus tried to do to the Tutsis was attempted genocide. 
 
Israel is not attempting anything like genocide. Calling it genocide is a form of anti-semitism, implying these accusers learned more from the Holocaust than the Jews did. 

I think the parallels between the Armenian genocide and the current situation in Gaza are pretty obvious.  The Young Turks thought that the land known as "Turkey" belonged to ethnic Turks and used violence and the threat of violence to force millions of Armenians to relocate to Syria. As they were carrying it out, they denied that they were attempting to kill Armenians and claimed that they were simply resettling them for the safety of the empire and those who deny the Armenian genocide today claim that they only intended to resettle Armenians as a defensive measure, not kill them.

I think there's room for reasonable debate whether what Israel is currently doing qualifies as a genocide as defined by the Geneva convention.  But the only reason I think there's room for debate is that I think there's tensions among Israel's current leadership about the goals of their current actions, and the perpetrator's intent is a central component of genocide as defined by the Geneva convention. I think there's also a pretty good argument to be made that the Geneva convention's definition is insufficient and doesn't cover certain acts of ethnic cleansing that most people would reasonably view as genocide (e.g. the Trail of Tears). But to say it's anti-Semitic to see what Israel is currently carrying out as a genocide is absurd.

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1 hour ago, statsman said:

Genocide? Please. 
 
The Holocaust was attempted genocide against the Jewish people. 
 
What Turkey tried to do to the Armenians was attempted genocide. 
 
What the Hutus tried to do to the Tutsis was attempted genocide. 
 
Israel is not attempting anything like genocide. Calling it genocide is a form of anti-semitism, implying these accusers learned more from the Holocaust than the Jews did. 

This is an absolutely trash take, but I guess I should expect this from the motherfucker that is claiming Israel's ongoing actions in the West Bank are because of Hamas.

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7 minutes ago, statsman said:

But that’s not true. There is no special aversion to using it wrt Israel. It happens all the time! In this thread! Anti-Israelis and anti-Semites like to use it to refer to Israeli policies, because they believe its application reduces the ability of Jews to be victims of anti-semitism. 

Serious question, do you consider people who are anti-Israel to be Anti-Semites?

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1 minute ago, DixonHur said:

Serious question, do you consider people who are anti-Israel to be Anti-Semites?

Of course he does. He and 956 have openly stated that criticizing the actions of Israel's government is antisemitism multiple times in this thread. The irony that their position is, in fact, actual antisemitism is lost of them of course.

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15 minutes ago, wildcat09 said:

I think the parallels between the Armenian genocide and the current situation in Gaza are pretty obvious.  The Young Turks thought that the land known as "Turkey" belonged to ethnic Turks and used violence and the threat of violence to force millions of Armenians to relocate to Syria. As they were carrying it out, they denied that they were attempting to kill Armenians and claimed that they were simply resettling them for the safety of the empire and those who deny the Armenian genocide today claim that they only intended to resettle Armenians as a defensive measure, not kill them.

I think there's room for reasonable debate whether what Israel is currently doing qualifies as a genocide as defined by the Geneva convention.  But the only reason I think there's room for debate is that I think there's tensions among Israel's current leadership about the goals of their current actions, and the perpetrator's intent is a central component of genocide as defined by the Geneva convention. I think there's also a pretty good argument to be made that the Geneva convention's definition is insufficient and doesn't cover certain acts of ethnic cleansing that most people would reasonably view as genocide (e.g. the Trail of Tears). But to say it's anti-Semitic to see what Israel is currently carrying out as a genocide is absurd.

I thought it was the Palestinians that chant, "from the river to the sea," not the Israelis.  I guess I was wrong.

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17 minutes ago, Brian Fantana said:

Of course he does. He and 956 have openly stated that criticizing the actions of Israel's government is antisemitism multiple times in this thread. The irony that their position is, in fact, actual antisemitism is lost of them of course.

I’ve criticized Bibi’s government on this thread myself. I did say that the (completely unhinged) theory that the Israeli government “let October 7 happen” is super fucking anti-Semitic, and it is, even if you hide behind that “anti-Israel, not Jewish” fig leaf. 

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1 hour ago, Anastasis said:

It's also a phrase straight out of the early Likud party platform. 

1 hour ago, Brian Fantana said:

"Between the Sea and the Jordan there will only be Israeli sovereignty"

I'm aware of that language in the original Likud platform.  That party has always been opposed to a two state solution and claims an eternal right to both sides of the Jordan.  So what?

I'm not aware of Israelis generally using that phrase as a rallying cry currently.  Some others are, though.

 

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2 minutes ago, 956 Worldwide said:

I’ve criticized Bibi’s government on this thread myself. I did say that the (completely unhinged) theory that the Israeli government “let October 7 happen” is super fucking anti-Semitic, and it is, even if you hide behind that “anti-Israel, not Jewish” fig leaf. 

For the record, I do not think they let it happen on purpose. I believe it is a fact that Netanyahu's government effectively props up Hamas in order to use their actions against Gazans, but I do not believe they would sacrifice so many of their own citizens to accomplish that. I think there was maybe some negligence and/or intelligence failures there, but that's not a sinister thing by any means.

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Just now, 956 Worldwide said:

I’ve criticized Bibi’s government on this thread myself. I did say that the (completely unhinged) theory that the Israeli government “let October 7 happen” is super fucking anti-Semitic, and it is, even if you hide behind that “anti-Israel, not Jewish” fig leaf. 

It's not a "fig leaf", it's a reality.  I'm generally anti-Israel, in the sense that I think it's creation was a huge mistake, but I have nothing against the Jewish people.  

 

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5 minutes ago, 956 Worldwide said:

I’ve criticized Bibi’s government on this thread myself. I did say that the (completely unhinged) theory that the Israeli government “let October 7 happen” is super fucking anti-Semitic, and it is, even if you hide behind that “anti-Israel, not Jewish” fig leaf. 

How is that antisemitic? (I think it's a stupid theory, for the record) 

There are hoopleheads who think George W. Bush knowingly let 9/11 happen. Is that religious bigotry as well? 

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27 minutes ago, wildcat09 said:

I think the parallels between the Armenian genocide and the current situation in Gaza are pretty obvious.  The Young Turks thought that the land known as "Turkey" belonged to ethnic Turks and used violence and the threat of violence to force millions of Armenians to relocate to Syria. As they were carrying it out, they denied that they were attempting to kill Armenians and claimed that they were simply resettling them for the safety of the empire and those who deny the Armenian genocide today claim that they only intended to resettle Armenians as a defensive measure, not kill them.

I think there's room for reasonable debate whether what Israel is currently doing qualifies as a genocide as defined by the Geneva convention.  But the only reason I think there's room for debate is that I think there's tensions among Israel's current leadership about the goals of their current actions, and the perpetrator's intent is a central component of genocide as defined by the Geneva convention. I think there's also a pretty good argument to be made that the Geneva convention's definition is insufficient and doesn't cover certain acts of ethnic cleansing that most people would reasonably view as genocide (e.g. the Trail of Tears). But to say it's anti-Semitic to see what Israel is currently carrying out as a genocide is absurd.

There is a lot of room for nuanced talk about intent vs. capabilities.  Regardless of your take on the current Israeli military action in Gaza, one thing is undeniable: Israel has the capability to be exponentially more cruel and explicitly “genocidal” to Palestinians in Gaza (and the West Bank) if they chose to be.  They are clearly following a type of framework on the acceptable level of civilian vice military casualties, the argument is whether that framework is robust enough and proportionate.  
 

Hamas, on the other hand, has explicitly genocidal intent, it is stated. Hamas has also demonstrated that if given the chance, they will deploy their full capabilities in pursuit of blatantly genocidal aims. This was clearly demonstrated on October 7, if Israel could clearly treat Gazans worse, Hamas clearly gave Israeli citizens the absolute worst they had to offer. 
 

And this element of intent is mostly lost in the leftist neo-Marxist debate where the only moral framework is powerful vs. less powerful which may have some practical application in actually looking for a compromise but far too easily slides in the the morally bankrupt viewpoint of assigning higher or lower moral values to actors simply based on their capabilities. 

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2 minutes ago, Huckleberry said:

How is that antisemitic? (I think it's a stupid theory, for the record) 

There are hoopleheads who think George W. Bush knowingly let 9/11 happen. Is that religious bigotry as well? 

Because context matters and there is a long history and dark of accusing Jews of fabricating or fomenting atrocities against themselves in order to further sinister aims.

I will again tell folks that taking in the propaganda room at the national holocaust museum is a must for any American. 

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Honestly, considering the actions of the Palestinian Fatah and Hamas, from the intifadas, where suicide bombers go into Israel to kill Jews indiscriminately, and the number of rockets fired constantly at Israeli civilian population centers over the last decade plus, I think the Palestinians look more genocidal than the Israelis. 
 
For some Jewish families, from 1933 to now, there have been precious few periods where one asshole or another hasn’t been trying to kill them for being Jewish. 

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17 minutes ago, 956 Worldwide said:

And this element of intent is mostly lost in the leftist neo-Marxist debate where the only moral framework is powerful vs. less powerful which may have some practical application in actually looking for a compromise but far too easily slides in the the morally bankrupt viewpoint of assigning higher or lower moral values to actors simply based on their capabilities. 

This paragraph is really, really important.

Hamas, as a foundational belief and consistent goal, wants to exterminate the state of Israel, and kill jews wherever they may be found.

As for the Israeli state, where there are ABSOLUTELY some within leadership (particularly current conservative leadership) who want to remove all Palestinians from the levant, there is actual strong difference of opinion within the state leadership itself, with a large part of that apparatus calling for a two-state solution, and doesn't actually require that ANY Palestinians die.

Short version: Hamas's vision of success requires Israel to be extinguished, and every jew to die.  Israel's vision of success actually has some place for a two-state solution.

If the warring parties had equal capabilities (e.g., if Hamas had every tool/weapon Israel has at its disposal) Hamas would have been engaged in a non-stop war of genocide long ago.  If the power was as disproportionate as it is now, but Hamas was the entity with the greater power.....yeah, every single honest person here knows that Israel would have been wiped from existence, and there would be no living jews in the levant (and many more dead jews elsewhere).

Assigning moral values to actors based on their capabilities is some fucking bullshit.  Accounting for it when pushing for compromise solutions makes sense, but putting Israel in the blackest of black hats just because they have more capability is bullshit.  And you know that is true, from a moral standpoint, because you know that if the roles were switched, the only jews left in the levant would be dead bodies.

Which, AGAIN, does not excuse actions of the Israeli state, right now, today, that are criminal (see, e.g., the ongoing and ramped-up bullshittery in the WB).

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8 minutes ago, 956 Worldwide said:

Because context matters and there is a long history and dark of accusing Jews of fabricating or fomenting atrocities against themselves in order to further sinister aims.

I will again tell folks that taking in the propaganda room at the national holocaust museum is a must for any American. 

I have. But your logic doesn't follow like you think it does. You are attempting to use a horrific history of suffering and malevolence to then paint every disagreement afterward with the same broad brush. It is intellectually facile at best. 

Some people with that stupid theory might very well want to believe it due to religious bigotry. Guess what? Some of the people in the world who believe the same stupid theory about 9/11 do it because of religious bigotry as well.  However, it is absolutely not necessary to harbor any religious bigotry in order to believe either theory. Your incessant efforts to paint anti-Israeli-government statements as antisemitic only make you seem foolish.

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15 minutes ago, DixonHur said:

It's not a "fig leaf", it's a reality.  I'm generally anti-Israel, in the sense that I think it's creation was a huge mistake, but I have nothing against the Jewish people.  

 

I won’t say that this is automatically anti-Semitic but it’s worth doing an honest self-inventory about which other countries you are “anti” because you believe their creation was a huge mistake.  You do know that virtually every single Arab nation expelled their Jews at basically the same time they were created as ethnostates with a privileged position for Muslims, right?  

If the take is that the Ottomans need to come back I can classify that as eccentric. 

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1 minute ago, Huckleberry said:

I have. But your logic doesn't follow like you think it does. You are attempting to use a horrific history of suffering and malevolence to then paint every disagreement afterward with the same broad brush. It is intellectually facile at best. 

Some people with that stupid theory might very well want to believe it due to religious bigotry. Guess what? Some of the people in the world who believe the same stupid theory about 9/11 do it because of religious bigotry as well.  However, it is absolutely not necessary to harbor any religious bigotry in order to believe either theory. Your incessant efforts to paint anti-Israeli-government statements as antisemitic only make you seem foolish.

Huckleberry, do you think “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” is anti-Semitic? I do- in that I see the Palestinian groups that promote it ad calling for a one-state, no Jews goal. Do you have a different interpretation?

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1 minute ago, 956 Worldwide said:

You do know that virtually every single Arab nation expelled their Jews at basically the same time they were created as ethnostates with a privileged position for Muslims, right?  

You will hear crickets after this.

Jewish ethnostate that does not grant Arab citizens all of the privileges of jewish citizens: a criminal enterprise that must be wiped from the earth.

Muslim ethnostate after ethnostate that killed or expelled functionally all jews: that's just history man, why you gotta bring it up, and man, do the jews EVER stop whining about being persecuted?

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2 minutes ago, Huckleberry said:

I have. But your logic doesn't follow like you think it does. You are attempting to use a horrific history of suffering and malevolence to then paint every disagreement afterward with the same broad brush. It is intellectually facile at best. 

Some people with that stupid theory might very well want to believe it due to religious bigotry. Guess what? Some of the people in the world who believe the same stupid theory about 9/11 do it because of religious bigotry as well.  However, it is absolutely not necessary to harbor any religious bigotry in order to believe either theory. Your incessant efforts to paint anti-Israeli-government statements as antisemitic only make you seem foolish.

No I’m not, if you want to say that the Israeli government is doing crimes by facilitating the expansion of settlements in the West Bank, I’ll tell you that you’re right. 
 

What I am saying is that the narrative above is a historic anti-Semitic narrative and when it’s deployed agains the world’s only Jewish nation, it’s anti-Semitic.  All these old theories and libels are not new, and neither is the substitution of a stand-in for Jew.  It was antisemitism back when it was lobbed against “International Cosmopolitanism.”

And Jews are a people, not just a religion. The intellectual facile bit comes into play when you willfully ignore the history and context that comes with it. In an American context, it’s similar to admitting that while false cries of rape are always harmful and bad, they carry an extra level of malevolence when levied against Black men. Context matters. 

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2 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

You will hear crickets after this.

Jewish ethnostate that does not grant Arab citizens all of the privileges of jewish citizens: a criminal enterprise that must be wiped from the earth.

Muslim ethnostate after ethnostate that killed or expelled functionally all jews: that's just history man, why you gotta bring it up, and man, do the jews EVER stop whining about being persecuted?

You got really stupid somewhere along the line, or maybe it's just this topic. Yes those Muslim theocratic ethnostates were and are awful. Why do you think anyone on this forum would disagree? 

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5 minutes ago, statsman said:

Huckleberry, do you think “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” is anti-Semitic? I do- in that I see the Palestinian groups that promote it ad calling for a one-state, no Jews goal. Do you have a different interpretation?

No, that phrase is not inherently antisemitic. I have zero doubt execution of the idea would be, though, if its adherents were afforded the opportunity. Just like Jewish desire for Israel to exist is not inherently bigoted. 

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19 minutes ago, 956 Worldwide said:

There is a lot of room for nuanced talk about intent vs. capabilities.  Regardless of your take on the current Israeli military action in Gaza, one thing is undeniable: Israel has the capability to be exponentially more cruel and explicitly “genocidal” to Palestinians in Gaza (and the West Bank) if they chose to be.  They are clearly following a type of framework on the acceptable level of civilian vice military casualties, the argument is whether that framework is robust enough and proportionate.  
 

Hamas, on the other hand, has explicitly genocidal intent, it is stated. Hamas has also demonstrated that if given the chance, they will deploy their full capabilities in pursuit of blatantly genocidal aims. This was clearly demonstrated on October 7, if Israel could clearly treat Gazans worse, Hamas clearly gave Israeli citizens the absolute worst they had to offer. 
 

And this element of intent is mostly lost in the leftist neo-Marxist debate where the only moral framework is powerful vs. less powerful which may have some practical application in actually looking for a compromise but far too easily slides in the the morally bankrupt viewpoint of assigning higher or lower moral values to actors simply based on their capabilities. 

I agree with the bolded. As for Hamas' intent, yeah it's absolutely genocidal. I'm not very familiar with the new(ish?) framework of determining proportionate military responses, calculating estimated civilian casualties, etc. and how they balance e.g. Hamas' genocidal intent with its actual capacity, so I can't really speak to that.

 

17 minutes ago, 956 Worldwide said:

Because context matters and there is a long history and dark of accusing Jews of fabricating or fomenting atrocities against themselves in order to further sinister aims.

I will again tell folks that taking in the propaganda room at the national holocaust museum is a must for any American. 

Bit of an aside here, but have you been to the Museum of Communism in Prague? That place is fascinating.

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2 minutes ago, Huckleberry said:

No, that phrase is not inherently antisemitic. I have zero doubt execution of the idea would be, though, if its adherents were afforded the opportunity. Just like Jewish desire for Israel to exist is not inherently bigoted. 

There's a painful amount of "Palestine = Hamas" reductionism from people who should know better.

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4 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

This paragraph is really, really important.

Hamas, as a foundational belief and consistent goal, wants to exterminate the state of Israel, and kill jews wherever they may be found.

As for the Israeli state, where there are ABSOLUTELY some within leadership (particularly current conservative leadership) who want to remove all Palestinians from the levant, there is actual strong difference of opinion within the state leadership itself, with a large part of that apparatus calling for a two-state solution, and doesn't actually require that ANY Palestinians die.

Short version: Hamas's vision of success requires Israel to be extinguished, and every jew to die.  Israel's vision of success actually has some place for a two-state solution.

If the warring parties had equal capabilities (e.g., if Hamas had every tool/weapon Israel has at its disposal) Hamas would have been engaged in a non-stop war of genocide long ago.  If the power was as disproportionate as it is now, but Hamas was the entity with the greater power.....yeah, every single honest person here knows that Israel would have been wiped from existence, and there would be no living jews in the levant (and many more dead jews elsewhere).

Assigning moral values to actors based on their capabilities is some fucking bullshit.  Accounting for it when pushing for compromise solutions makes sense, but putting Israel in the blackest of black hats just because they have more capability is bullshit.  And you know that is true, from a moral standpoint, because you know that if the roles were switched, the only jews left in the levant would be dead bodies.

Which, AGAIN, does not excuse actions of the Israeli state, right now, today, that are criminal (see, e.g., the ongoing and ramped-up bullshittery in the WB).

You're not wrong and a lot of the "leftist, neo-Marxist" rhetoric is super silly, idealistic, and flat out wrong.

My position has always been that a military defeat of Hamas is something that can't really be accomplished short of literally killing every Palestinian in Gaza. Obviously, that would be awful and ultimately counter-productive. I don't think anyone besides the small minority of the most bloodthirsty right-wingers Israel has to offer wants that.

Hamas is many things but first and foremost it's an idea that can't truly be destroyed by simply employing an ever escalating level of violence. the first real step to truly and finally eradicating Hamas is to end the ethnic cleansing, which can only be done by Israel's government itself (really, by America's influence, but lol). When I talk about the power dynamic, that's what I mean. I don't believe Israel is in the wrong by default simply because they are in the more powerful position, that would be insane.

You can kill as many Hamas actors as you want, but in the end, the idea will stay in place until conditions are altered enough for the it to wither and die. Ultimately, it has to be defeated politically to be gone for good.

I hope that reality can ever come to fruition but I am almost as pessimistic as you.

30 minutes ago, 956 Worldwide said:

I will again tell folks that taking in the propaganda room at the national holocaust museum is a must for any American. 

I will absolutely 100% second this. Go there, if you can.

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4 minutes ago, Huckleberry said:

You got really stupid somewhere along the line, or maybe it's just this topic. Yes those Muslim theocratic ethnostates were and are awful. Why do you think anyone on this forum would disagree? 

Because they miss the fucking practical.  By a mile.  If a muslim wants a safe muslim ethnostate to seek refuge in, he has a dozen to choose from.  But jews....well, I guess they don't get one.  Not a single one.

And don't point to Europe as a jewish safe haven.  That's still a bit fucking raw.  Maybe don't point to the US either - we did a fine job of turning away jewish refugees during the holocaust, and are apparently deciding that violent anti-semitism is something we ought to look into doing again, at least among a depressingly significant portion of our population.  Jews don't have ANYWHERE ON EARTH that is an actual refuge....except Israel.  That is a reality, and being that a shitload of the discussion of this issue just takes that fact right off the table means that we're all just wasting our time.  Jews will never let go of the concept of having a state that is a safe haven for jews.  They'd be suicidal-stupid to do so.

Goddammit, I sympathize with the Palestinians.  I want a two-state solution.  I want Israeli crimes against Palestinians to be punished.  But when the other side of the ledger uniformly ends with "and end the state of Israel, so that jews have no safe place left in this world," it all goes to shit.

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