Israel–United States relations and associated politics

[Kurth]

They can defeat Hamas militarily, but they're just going to end up with a new Hamas with a slightly different name. Overcoming the second factor will would require changes in policy, behavior, and would require generations.

...or they can just wipe Gaza off the map, in which case they'll end up with even more of the same, but from from slightly fewer borders.

Yup. Or put another way, defeating Hamas militarily (even an overwhelming victory) doesn't solve the broader Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Israel can only get real permanent peace through either a deal with the Palestinians (whatever that ultimately looks like) or massive crimes against humanity (ethnic cleansing - essentially expelling substantially all Palestinians from the occupied territories).

The most optimistic scenario I can think of is Hamas gets crippled militarily in the next month or so, then a new Israeli government is elected in September without the right wing extremist parties, which is then open to more realistic deals. Who knows if anything would happen in reality...but it at least becomes *possible*.

The idea that Hamas cannot be defeated is absurd. Of course it can, as El Guapo points out, but it's a matter of the cost to Israel in blood (its soldiers and hostages), resources and PR, not to mention the bigger picture ethical/moral issues surrounding the inevitable resulting civilian casualties in Gaza.

On The Daily today, they focused on the ongoing efforts to forge a grand international deal that would result in a ceasefire and a permanent Palestinian state in exchange for normalization of relations between Israel and its surrounding Arab neighbors (not Iran, obviously). Before October 7, the Saudis and a few other Arab states, the U.S. and Israel were making significant progress towards that goal, and many believe that one of the catalysts for the October 7 attack by Hamas was that they felt betrayed by their putative Arab allies as they appeared to inch closer to peace with Israel.

The Daily posited that there's still a way forward through a grand bargain that would guarantee formation of a Palestinian state, rebuilding of Gaza and the West Bank backed by the incredible resources of the oil-rich Arab states, and normal diplomatic relations between the Arab states and Israel.

That all makes sense to me, but for the fact that it leaves out one essential party to the negotiations: the Palestinians. As has been the case since after Arafat blew up the Oslo Accords and launched the Second Intifada, the Palestinians have no legitimate entity to represent them at the bargaining table. Israel will never, ever negotiate peace with Hamas. It may negotiate a cease fire and a return of hostages, but Israel will never stop until it feels it has wiped out every last vestige of Hamas. So who represents the Palestinians? The PA in the West Bank is reviled internally, so they're not really an option.

It feels to me like this is the major obstacle. Sure, the prevailing opinion in Israel right now is weighted against a 2 state solution involving formation of a Palestinian state, but I think that's very much influence by the lack of viable leadership on the Palestinian side. It wasn't that long ago that a 2 state solution was embraced by the Israeli population, and I think we could get back to that if they had any hope that there were Palestinians in charge who actually wanted a peaceful resolution. The absence of that has very much allowed Netanyahu and his right wing nut job allies to lead the country in a disastrous direction.

[Victoria Raverna]

Is Israel willing to release Marwan Barghouti so he can be the leader of the Palestinian side? Problem with that is if he is going to be a Nelson Mandela or someone who hold grudge against Israel.

[Isgrimnur]

Wow, is this real?

...

It is now acceptable to threaten ICC? What if it is Russia or China that is doing that?

12 Senators. Making threats they can't really make good on. It's just an attempt to get more press.

The Disloyal Minority.

[El Guapo]

Is Israel willing to release Marwan Barghouti so he can be the leader of the Palestinian side? Problem with that is if he is going to be a Nelson Mandela or someone who hold grudge against Israel.

I don't know much about Barghouti. Is he a plausible peacemaker?

[Blackhawk]

Son of a...now I have to find ANOTHER country to use?

Where do we stand on Latveria?

Copyrighted by Marvel. Similar problems with Corto Maltese.

[Blackhawk]

They can defeat Hamas militarily, but they're just going to end up with a new Hamas with a slightly different name. Overcoming the second factor will would require changes in policy, behavior, and would require generations.

...or they can just wipe Gaza off the map, in which case they'll end up with even more of the same, but from from slightly fewer borders.

Yup. Or put another way, defeating Hamas militarily (even an overwhelming victory) doesn't solve the broader Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Israel can only get real permanent peace through either a deal with the Palestinians (whatever that ultimately looks like) or massive crimes against humanity (ethnic cleansing - essentially expelling substantially all Palestinians from the occupied territories).

The most optimistic scenario I can think of is Hamas gets crippled militarily in the next month or so, then a new Israeli government is elected in September without the right wing extremist parties, which is then open to more realistic deals. Who knows if anything would happen in reality...but it at least becomes *possible*.

The idea that Hamas cannot be defeated is absurd. Of course it can, as El Guapo points out, but it's a matter of the cost to Israel in blood (its soldiers and hostages), resources and PR, not to mention the bigger picture ethical/moral issues surrounding the inevitable resulting civilian casualties in Gaza.

I think that the problem is that we keep using the name 'Hamas' in the discussion when Hamas is really just the current form of what we're really talking about.

You can defeat Russia, but not communism. You can defeat Nazi Germany, but not bigotry. You can defeat the Confederacy, but not racism disguised as southern pride. You can defeat Hamas, but not the hatred and resentment toward Israel that resulted in Hamas.

So, yeah - you can defeat them militarily, but it's not going to achieve much more than a brief pause while the oppressed find a new flag to fly.

[Victoria Raverna]

Is Israel willing to release Marwan Barghouti so he can be the leader of the Palestinian side? Problem with that is if he is going to be a Nelson Mandela or someone who hold grudge against Israel.

I don't know much about Barghouti. Is he a plausible peacemaker?

Some "expert" think he is but he was also accused of being involved in attacks that killed Israeli which was why he was sentenced to jail. They also think he'll win the election against both current Fatah leader and Hamas leader.

[Kurth]

They can defeat Hamas militarily, but they're just going to end up with a new Hamas with a slightly different name. Overcoming the second factor will would require changes in policy, behavior, and would require generations.

...or they can just wipe Gaza off the map, in which case they'll end up with even more of the same, but from from slightly fewer borders.

Yup. Or put another way, defeating Hamas militarily (even an overwhelming victory) doesn't solve the broader Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Israel can only get real permanent peace through either a deal with the Palestinians (whatever that ultimately looks like) or massive crimes against humanity (ethnic cleansing - essentially expelling substantially all Palestinians from the occupied territories).

The most optimistic scenario I can think of is Hamas gets crippled militarily in the next month or so, then a new Israeli government is elected in September without the right wing extremist parties, which is then open to more realistic deals. Who knows if anything would happen in reality...but it at least becomes *possible*.

The idea that Hamas cannot be defeated is absurd. Of course it can, as El Guapo points out, but it's a matter of the cost to Israel in blood (its soldiers and hostages), resources and PR, not to mention the bigger picture ethical/moral issues surrounding the inevitable resulting civilian casualties in Gaza.

I think that the problem is that we keep using the name 'Hamas' in the discussion when Hamas is really just the current form of what we're really talking about.

You can defeat Russia, but not communism. You can defeat Nazi Germany, but not bigotry. You can defeat the Confederacy, but not racism disguised as southern pride. You can defeat Hamas, but not the hatred and resentment toward Israel that resulted in Hamas.

So, yeah - you can defeat them militarily, but it's not going to achieve much more than a brief pause while the oppressed find a new flag to fly.

When you suggest that Hamas is "really just the current form of what we're really talking about," I think you are right in one sense, but I disagree with a lot of what you posted here. A few thoughts in response:

First, Hamas is not "current" in the sense that it's just the flavor of the day of Palestinian terrorist organizations. Hamas has existed for nearly 4 decades and has ruled over Gaza for the last two decades after defeating Fatah in elections following Israel's decision to unilaterally withdraw from the Gaza strip. With external help from Iran (and some terribly misguided policy by Israel), Hams has been in an enduring power in Gaza and in Palestinian socio-political life since the Reagan administration.

Second, Hamas did not result simply from hatred and resentment of Israel. Hamas is anti-semitic to its core, as put forth in its original charter published in 1988 calling for the murder of Jews, the destruction of Israel, and in Israel’s place, the establishment of an Islamic society in historic Palestine. So, in terms of "what we're really talking about" when we're talking about Hamas, it's in large part a deeply seated, virulent anti-semitism, not resentment toward Israel fueled by Israeli oppression.

Third, I think the point you make above about defeating Russia (I think you mean the U.S.S.R.), Nazi Germany and Confederacy reinforces the reason many believe Israel cannot stop until Hamas is utterly destroyed. To a large extent, I agree that you cannot stamp out ideas, but your examples stand for the proposition that if you wipe out the organizations that are in power to act on those ideas, you can accomplish an awful lot. Sure, defeating the Nazis didn't end fascism or militant nationalism or Aryan Nation bullshit, but does anyone really think it wasn't a necessary and vital thing to do to take away power from the organization that was genocidally pushing those ideas forward at the time?

I don't agree with arguments that wiping out Hamas is not an important goal because Hamas is just an ideology. I think that falls flat.

[Carpet_pissr]

Finally this thread is interesting and mentally challenging again. Yay!

[Victoria Raverna]

This showed that those who pro-Palestinian still need to vote for Biden because this clearly show that Trump is worse for Gaza:

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/wor ... 624697007/

"Hamas murdered thousands of innocent civilians, including babies, and are still holding Americans hostage, if the hostages are still alive," Trump said in a Truth Social post. "Yet Crooked Joe is taking the side of these terrorists, just like he has sided with the Radical Mobs taking over our college campuses, because his donors are funding them."

[LordMortis]

This showed that those who pro-Palestinian still need to vote for Biden because this clearly show that Trump is worse for Gaza:

Voting is free and you can't tell people what to do but one would think. Joe Kernan on CNBC was pissed at Biden (as if he's ever not pissed at Biden) for "courting Michigan" by threatening to withhold bombs from Israel. They had Mike Johnson on to state the Biden is overstepping Congress approval of Israel spending with the threat.

[TheMix]

I rest my case. Even Russia likes them. They're the Mr. Rogers of Europe. Fun fact: when France invented the Guillotine, Lithuania invented the Pillowtine. It was meant as a stern warning not to do whatever you did again.

I don't want to ruin your image of Lithuania, hepcat, but it's worth pointing out that Jews tend to see the country through slightly less historically rose-tinged glasses:

The Holocaust in Lithuania resulted in the near total eradication of Lithuanian (Litvaks) and Polish Jews[a] in Generalbezirk Litauen of the Reichskommissariat Ostland in the Nazi-controlled Lithuania. Of approximately 208,000–210,000 Jews at the time of the Nazi invasion, an estimated 190,000 to 195,000 were killed before the end of World War II, most of them between June and December 1941. More than 95% of Lithuania's Jewish population was murdered over the three-year German occupation,[1] a more complete destruction than befell any other country in the Holocaust.[2] Historians attribute this to the massive collaboration in the genocide by the non-Jewish local paramilitaries, though the reasons for this collaboration are still debated.[3] The Holocaust resulted in the largest loss of life in so short a period of time in the history of Lithuania.[4]

Having been to the memorial and associated museum, I can vouch that it was brutal.

[El Guapo]

This showed that those who pro-Palestinian still need to vote for Biden because this clearly show that Trump is worse for Gaza:

Voting is free and you can't tell people what to do but one would think. Joe Kernan on CNBC was pissed at Biden (as if he's ever not pissed at Biden) for "courting Michigan" by threatening to withhold bombs from Israel. They had Mike Johnson on to state the Biden is overstepping Congress approval of Israel spending with the threat.

I worry a bit that, just purely on the politics, Biden is going to wind up in an unhappy center where no one likes him. Like I doubt that the "Genocide Joe" people are going to be all that moved by denying weapons for this one part of the operation. But at the same time I imagine a lot of pro-Israel people will see this as a betrayal.

Maybe facing the reality that Israel is (I think) very likely to go into Rafah, and having drawn a bit of a red line on Rafah, he needed some sort of visible "break" from Israel on that part of the war.

[Victoria Raverna]

There are a lot of reactions from a lot of people to Biden suspending weapon shipment to Israell in this video, but I link directly to Ehud Olmer's part which put all the blame on Netanyahu:

[El Guapo]

I mean, the one thing that almost everyone can agree on is that Netanyahu is a dick.

[Victoria Raverna]

I mean, the one thing that almost everyone can agree on is that Netanyahu is a dick.

But if you look at that video. A lot of people (mostly politicians in US and the one in charge in Israel) put the blame on Biden. They accused him of helping Hamas. Or that Hamas loves Biden.

[El Guapo]

I mean, the one thing that almost everyone can agree on is that Netanyahu is a dick.

But if you look at that video. A lot of people (mostly politicians in US and the one in charge in Israel) put the blame on Biden. They accused him of helping Hamas. Or that Hamas loves Biden.

Yes, a lot of people (often unfairly) blame Biden for all sorts of things as well.

[Zarathud]

I blame the misinformation that comes from people blindly posting videos from social media. Especially shit posters who don’t take responsibility for anything they “share.”

:wink wink, nudge nudge:
Say no more, eh?

[Victoria Raverna]

I blame the misinformation that comes from people blindly posting videos from social media. Especially shit posters who don’t take responsibility for anything they “share.”

:wink wink, nudge nudge:
Say no more, eh?

And I blame close minded people who only want to see videos they agree with.

[Zarathud]

And I’d rather read a report from an actual journalist, or talk with someone who’s an expert, or get an update from someone whose job involves getting advance information on what’s happening on the floor in Congress.

If you post shit and don’t stand behind it, why do you think you’re entitled to waste my time?

[Victoria Raverna]

And I’d rather read a report from an actual journalist, or talk with someone who’s an expert, or get an update from someone whose job involves getting advance information on what’s happening on the floor in Congress.

If you post shit and don’t stand behind it, why do you think you’re entitled to waste my time?

You can just ignore them if you don't want to waste your time. Why do you think you're entitled to decide on what I should or should not post?

[Zarathud]

You can post but I’m going to keep mocking you for it — especially when your posting algorithm keeps approaching a Chinese click farm.

[Victoria Raverna]

You can post but I’m going to keep mocking you for it — especially when your posting algorithm keeps approaching a Chinese click farm.

Ok. Then I guess I'll just save my time by ignoring you. Feel free to mock me. It is your choice.

[Blackhawk]

I'm going to take another tack here - instead of straight up calling bullshit, I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt and explain why we're reacting the way we are.

You can just ignore them if you don't want to waste your time. Why do you think you're entitled to decide on what I should or should not post?

We are entitled to post our opinions of what others post. And that includes stating that if they post nonsense, they are wasting our time, and aren't really justified if they complain when we say so.

As to your continued passive-aggressive* commentary, you seem to have a very black and white view of the world. One is either 100% pro-Israel/anti-Palestine, or they are 100% the opposite. There is either agreeing with you completely, or disagreeing with you completely. There is either right, or there is wrong.

And if they aren't 100% in the category you choose as your own, you denigrate them, imply that they're dishonest, delusional, blind, or just too stupid to understand you.

That's not reality. This particular group of people *looks around* largely aren't pro-Israel. They're mostly not pro-Palestine. They're aware that the situation is incredibly complex with all sorts of factors that make both sides both victim and victimizer, with the balance between the two shifting from event to event.

There are positions other that "Israel is right" and "Israel is wrong." You're insisting on lumping everyone into one of those two views when almost nobody here actually fits into those categories.

*And it was suggested that you may not be following what we're saying when we complain about passive aggressiveness. It's when you post insulting or dismissive comments, but carefully phrase them to be vague so that you're not addressing those people directly, but are nonetheless going after them. For example, if your statement refers to 'people' rather than the people you're talking about, it's probably passive-aggressive, and it's an underhanded and obvious tactic. You can insult someone, then when they get offended, claim innocence - when everyone knows what was actually said.

Quick examples:

I know, but US always being promoted as an exception to that. Where everyone is equal and free. I guess maybe that was just propaganda.

And I blame close minded people who only want to see videos they agree with.

Hint:
Someone disliking or distrusting your your sources doesn't mean that they dislike the message - just that they don't trust it to be accurate. You can post videos that, if true, would have us cheering in the street. But in this day and age, the majority of information on controversial topics is skewed, if not outright false. People are absolutely going to be on guard when it comes to accepting what we're told. If we weren't, we'd be no better than the conspiracy theory cultists who accept everything at face value.

Further hint:
And if someone is making a claim, the job of backing that claim up (that is, verifying the information) is on the person making that claim. It's pretty crass to post everything that pops up and expect everyone to sort through it for you. You absolutely can - we're not going to stop you. But we also aren't going to do your work for you - we'll call you out on it, and we'll likely ignore most of it. You end up wasting your time.

You don't strike me as stupid. Quite the opposite. You could absolutely be making some good points here. But the way you've been going at it, nobody will pay attention when you're making a good point, as you've developed a reputation for posting questionable material, and then them out when they disagree with you, often equating disagreeing with a particular source or aspect of something as disagreeing with the entire thing (For example, I might disagree that Biden isn't doing anything without disagreeing that he could be doing better. Or I might disagree with some comment about pro-Israeli protestors without it meaning that I think they - or Israel is right.

Just like I might criticize Bethesda's game design without saying that they don't make good games.

[Victoria Raverna]

Blackhawk,

I think if you look back fairly, you'll see why I responded the way I did. Most of the time I was just responding. If someone is mocking me or insult me, I think it is fair for me to respond the same way. Sometime because so many replies from others, I mixed things up and maybe responded badly to someone else because I got them mixed up.

That is not my goal of posting things here. R&P topics sometime is very quiet and nothing interesting to discuss. So I thought I was doing a good thing by posting something so we can discuss it. I now know that is not how some people here view that.

I think instead of we attack each other. Maybe just ignore anything that you don't like. I'm sure I am not always post something that is "bad" here.

Now as for Zarathud. He won. He is free to continue to mock me and I'm not going to respond. I put him in the foe list so I don't need to read his post. He was the second one added to that and right now the only one since I removed the other member a year ago from it.

[Blackhawk]

Blackhawk,

I think if you look back fairly, you'll see why I responded the way I did. Most of the time I was just responding. If someone is mocking me or insult me, I think it is fair for me to respond the same way. Sometime because so many replies from others, I mixed things up and maybe responded badly to someone else because I got them mixed up.

That is not my goal of posting things here. R&P topics sometime is very quiet and nothing interesting to discuss. So I thought I was doing a good thing by posting something so we can discuss it. I now know that is not how some people here view that.

I think instead of we attack each other. Maybe just ignore anything that you don't like. I'm sure I am not always post something that is "bad" here.

Now as for Zarathud. He won. He is free to continue to mock me and I'm not going to respond. I put him in the foe list so I don't need to read his post. He was the second one added to that and right now the only one since I removed the other member a year ago from it.

I think you've got the wrong impression. First off, there have been very few attacks on you. We've attacked your behavior, and we've attacked your content, but not you personally. Even my 'head up your ass' was a reference to what you were doing, not who you are (and it bothered me afterward that I let it get so heated - I could have said the same thing a different way. So, I stand by the message, but I apologize for the form.)

And while OO does sometimes feel like an echo chamber, people here are usually happy to discuss dissenting views. The problem that you're seeing isn't about the views - it's about the presentation. If you post something that's of questionable validity, people are going to question it's validity - not discuss it. If it's not a valid point (IE - if it's from a questionable news source, or is heavily biased), we're not going to give it serious attention any more than we would something from Fox News. But that's not personal. That's not an attack on you, or an insult to you.

If that's what OO was like, we'd never have bothered to tell you why we were responding or make suggestions that could help foster real discussion.

FWIW, I used to do the same thing. I posted a lot of completely out-there stuff when I joined OO. I was then taken out to the woodshed by the likes of GreenGoo and RM9 - repeatedly. I had ideas that I'd worked on for years, then spent hours presenting, absolutely picked apart and destroyed. It didn't mean that they didn't like me, or were trying to insult me. It also didn't mean that I was only allowed to post things that fit their preconceived ideas. What it meant - and what I did - was learn to look for the flaws in what I was doing myself before I dropped it in front of respected peers. I stopped just slinging ideas and making claims, and started finding out if I was full of it before I opened my mouth. It resulted in a better me. A considerably better me.

But yeah, it was painful and unpleasant when people I respected took me to task for posting without thinking.

It still happens. To all of us. I'm full of shit on a regular basis. The only difference is that when people I respect point it out to me, I take a breath, then step back and figure out if they've got a point before I start swinging (well, except for Hepcat .) Sort of like this. It's why I'm taking a step back and trying a different approach, giving you the benefit of the doubt, and accepting that I may have been wrong.

[Zarathud]

Now as for Zarathud. He won. He is free to continue to mock me and I'm not going to respond. I put him in the foe list so I don't need to read his post. He was the second one added to that and right now the only one since I removed the other member a year ago from it.

Frankly, I was hoping for an explanation or more self-awareness in VR's behavior.

When I attack a viewpoint or behavior, I'm more than happy to see a valid point or good response. With Rip, I enjoyed it when he hit back. RM9 was pretty good, too. LordMortis made me laugh when we last met and he gave me his frank opinion that I like Biden too much. But I think it's only fair that you own what you post. That includes myself, and I'll say that I don't think anything I did was as nasty as when VR openly called me immoral and bad for my viewpoint. Or being called ignorant.

It's pretty clear by now I don't like how social media degrades analysis and is used for propaganda rather than understanding. It's the antithesis to my legal education of trying to understand an argument, learn how to advocate for either viewpoint when necessary, investigate the facts, establish credibility, push forward relevant information, and bring out concessions during a cross-examination.

So not really an apology, but an explanation. Because I respect people here, especially Blackhawk for trying to explain in a situation when he doesn't have to.

[Dogstar]

Whatever we do, I hope it doesn't further empower the right-wing extremists in Netanyahu's coalition/cabinet.

A settler and lawyer, Ben-Gvir was cleared by Israel’s high court to serve as a cabinet minister despite convictions for incitement to racism and for supporting a terror group – Meir Kahane’s banned Kach party. In 2015, in the immediate aftermath of the murder of members of the Palestinian Dawabshe family in an arson attack on a West Bank village, he was filmed as an attender at a wedding party of a radical settler along with now sanctioned anti-Arab activist Bentzi Gopstein.

In the footage, guests could be seen stabbing a picture of Ali Dawabshe, a toddler who died during the attack, waving guns and firebombs and singing. Netanyahu, who described the images as “shocking”, would later give Ben-Gvir a portfolio with responsibility for Israel’s police...

...According to reports in the Hebrew media last month, Ben-Gvir demanded of the Israeli chief of staff at a briefing: “Why are there so many arrests [in Gaza]?

“Can’t you kill some? Do you want to tell me they all surrender? What are we to do with so many arrested? It’s dangerous for the soldiers.”

Smotrich, the finance minister who recently annexed another 800 hectares in the West Bank, threatens further extreme measures against Palestinians.

Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich issued a warning Thursday that if the Palestinian Authority continues with its efforts for international recognition of a state and for what he said was its bid to obtain international arrest warrants against Israelis over the war in Gaza, he will cut off the transfer of funds to the Palestinian administrative body.

In a letter sent to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and widely reported by Hebrew media, Smotrich wrote that the PA is an immediate danger to Israel and called on the premier to annex the West Bank if the Palestinians don’t desist from their actions.

More great behavior from our ally in terms of containing prisoners detailed by whistleblower.

Rows of men in gray tracksuits are seen sitting on paper-thin mattresses, ringfenced by barbed wire. All appear blindfolded, their heads hanging heavy under the glare of floodlights....

CNN spoke to three Israeli whistleblowers who worked at the Sde Teiman desert camp, which holds Palestinians detained during Israel’s invasion of Gaza. All spoke out at risk of legal repercussions and reprisals from groups supportive of Israel’s hardline policies in Gaza...

They paint a picture of a facility where doctors sometimes amputated prisoners’ limbs due to injuries sustained from constant handcuffing; of medical procedures sometimes performed by underqualified medics earning it a reputation for being “a paradise for interns”; and where the air is filled with the smell of neglected wounds left to rot.

According to the accounts, the facility some 18 miles from the Gaza frontier is split into two parts: enclosures where around 70 Palestinian detainees from Gaza are placed under extreme physical restraint, and a field hospital where wounded detainees are strapped to their beds, wearing diapers and fed through straws.

The whole article is an appalling read.

[El Guapo]

The debate over Rafah.

Still love The Morning NYT newsletter. This has a great summary of the various arguments on each side over Rafah.

[Victoria Raverna]

More great behavior from our ally in terms of containing prisoners detailed by whistleblower.

Rows of men in gray tracksuits are seen sitting on paper-thin mattresses, ringfenced by barbed wire. All appear blindfolded, their heads hanging heavy under the glare of floodlights....

CNN spoke to three Israeli whistleblowers who worked at the Sde Teiman desert camp, which holds Palestinians detained during Israel’s invasion of Gaza. All spoke out at risk of legal repercussions and reprisals from groups supportive of Israel’s hardline policies in Gaza...

They paint a picture of a facility where doctors sometimes amputated prisoners’ limbs due to injuries sustained from constant handcuffing; of medical procedures sometimes performed by underqualified medics earning it a reputation for being “a paradise for interns”; and where the air is filled with the smell of neglected wounds left to rot.

According to the accounts, the facility some 18 miles from the Gaza frontier is split into two parts: enclosures where around 70 Palestinian detainees from Gaza are placed under extreme physical restraint, and a field hospital where wounded detainees are strapped to their beds, wearing diapers and fed through straws.

The whole article is an appalling read.

Thanks for posting that. I read that but hesitated to post it here. I'm glad I don't have to since I think it is important not to be ignored just because people don't like me.

Hopefully that is a sign that there'll be more pressure from US to Israel to stop the bad things. Doing things like that isn't going to make Israel safer.

[El Guapo]

More great behavior from our ally in terms of containing prisoners detailed by whistleblower.

Rows of men in gray tracksuits are seen sitting on paper-thin mattresses, ringfenced by barbed wire. All appear blindfolded, their heads hanging heavy under the glare of floodlights....

CNN spoke to three Israeli whistleblowers who worked at the Sde Teiman desert camp, which holds Palestinians detained during Israel’s invasion of Gaza. All spoke out at risk of legal repercussions and reprisals from groups supportive of Israel’s hardline policies in Gaza...

They paint a picture of a facility where doctors sometimes amputated prisoners’ limbs due to injuries sustained from constant handcuffing; of medical procedures sometimes performed by underqualified medics earning it a reputation for being “a paradise for interns”; and where the air is filled with the smell of neglected wounds left to rot.

According to the accounts, the facility some 18 miles from the Gaza frontier is split into two parts: enclosures where around 70 Palestinian detainees from Gaza are placed under extreme physical restraint, and a field hospital where wounded detainees are strapped to their beds, wearing diapers and fed through straws.

The whole article is an appalling read.

Thanks for posting that. I read that but hesitated to post it here. I'm glad I don't have to since I think it is important not to be ignored just because people don't like me.

Hopefully that is a sign that there'll be more pressure from US to Israel to stop the bad things. Doing things like that isn't going to make Israel safer.

Awful.

[Victoria Raverna]

US'll veto it again?

https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-ea ... 024-05-10/

UNITED NATIONS, May 10 (Reuters) - The United Nations General Assembly on Friday overwhelmingly backed a Palestinian bid to become a full U.N. member by recognizing it as qualified to join and recommending the U.N. Security Council "reconsider the matter favorably."
The vote by the 193-member General Assembly was a global survey of support for the Palestinian bid to become a full U.N. member - a move that would effectively recognize a Palestinian state - after the United States vetoed it in the U.N. Security Council last month.
The assembly adopted a resolution with 143 votes in favor and nine against - including the U.S. and Israel - while 25 countries abstained. It does not give the Palestinians full U.N. membership, but simply recognizes them as qualified to join.

Most of Israel's western allies voted for it Only exception are US who voted against and UK was abstained.

[El Guapo]

US'll veto it again?

https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-ea ... 024-05-10/

UNITED NATIONS, May 10 (Reuters) - The United Nations General Assembly on Friday overwhelmingly backed a Palestinian bid to become a full U.N. member by recognizing it as qualified to join and recommending the U.N. Security Council "reconsider the matter favorably."
The vote by the 193-member General Assembly was a global survey of support for the Palestinian bid to become a full U.N. member - a move that would effectively recognize a Palestinian state - after the United States vetoed it in the U.N. Security Council last month.
The assembly adopted a resolution with 143 votes in favor and nine against - including the U.S. and Israel - while 25 countries abstained. It does not give the Palestinians full U.N. membership, but simply recognizes them as qualified to join.

Most of Israel's western allies voted for it Only exception are US who voted against and UK was abstain.

This is a General Assembly vote, so it doesn't really matter.

[Victoria Raverna]

US'll veto it again?

https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-ea ... 024-05-10/

UNITED NATIONS, May 10 (Reuters) - The United Nations General Assembly on Friday overwhelmingly backed a Palestinian bid to become a full U.N. member by recognizing it as qualified to join and recommending the U.N. Security Council "reconsider the matter favorably."
The vote by the 193-member General Assembly was a global survey of support for the Palestinian bid to become a full U.N. member - a move that would effectively recognize a Palestinian state - after the United States vetoed it in the U.N. Security Council last month.
The assembly adopted a resolution with 143 votes in favor and nine against - including the U.S. and Israel - while 25 countries abstained. It does not give the Palestinians full U.N. membership, but simply recognizes them as qualified to join.

Most of Israel's western allies voted for it Only exception are US who voted against and UK was abstain.

This is a General Assembly vote, so it doesn't really matter.

It was a vote to submit that to UN Security Council for another voting. One where US is likely to veto it again. I think it is more of a show of support. Even something that doesn't really matter made Israel mad about it and wanted US to cut UN funding.

From the same article:

"As long as so many of you are 'Jew-hating,' you don't really care that the Palestinians are not 'peace-loving'," U.N. Ambassador Gilad Erdan, who spoke after Mansour, told his fellow diplomats. He accused the assembly of shredding the U.N. Charter - as he used a small shredder to destroy a copy of the Charter while at the lectern.
"Shame on you," Erdan said.

An application to become a full U.N. member first needs to be approved by the 15-member Security Council and then the General Assembly. If the measure is again voted on by the council it is likely to face the same fate: a U.S. veto.

Deputy U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Robert Wood told the General Assembly after the vote that unilateral measures at the U.N. and on the ground will not advance a two-state solution.

"Our vote does not reflect opposition to Palestinian statehood; we have been very clear that we support it and seek to advance it meaningfully. Instead, it is an acknowledgement that statehood will only come from a process that involves direct negotiations between the parties," he said.

The United Nations has long endorsed a vision of two states living side by side within secure and recognized borders. Palestinians want a state in the West Bank, east Jerusalem and Gaza Strip, all territory captured by Israel in the 1967 war with neighboring Arab states.

The General Assembly resolution adopted on Friday does give the Palestinians some additional rights and privileges from September 2024 - like a seat among the U.N. members in the assembly hall - but they will not be granted a vote in the body.

The Palestinians are currently a non-member observer state, a de facto recognition of statehood that was granted by the U.N. General Assembly in 2012.

They are represented at the U.N. by the Palestinian Authority, which exercises limited self-rule in the West Bank. Hamas ousted the Palestinian Authority from power in Gaza in 2007. Hamas - which has a charter calling for Israel's destruction - launched the Oct. 7 attack on Israel that triggered Israel's assault on Gaza.

Erdan said on Monday that, if the General Assembly adopted the resolution, he expected Washington to cut funding to the United Nations and its institutions.

Under U.S. law, Washington cannot fund any U.N. organization that grants full membership to any group that does not have the "internationally recognized attributes" of statehood. The United States cut funding in 2011 for the U.N. cultural agency, UNESCO, after the Palestinians joined as a full member.

On Thursday, 25 Republican U.S. senators - more than half of the party's members in the chamber - introduced a bill to tighten those restrictions and cut off funding to any entity giving rights and privileges to the Palestinians. The bill is unlikely to pass the Senate, which is controlled by President Joe Biden's Democrats.

Israel ambassador's objection:

[El Guapo]

Yeah by "doesn't matter" I meant more legally. There's no capital or borders of a "State of Palestine" yet anyway, so it's more of a symbolic (though still meaningful) thing.

[gbasden]

And while OO does sometimes feel like an echo chamber, people here are usually happy to discuss dissenting views. The problem that you're seeing isn't about the views - it's about the presentation. If you post something that's of questionable validity, people are going to question it's validity - not discuss it. If it's not a valid point (IE - if it's from a questionable news source, or is heavily biased), we're not going to give it serious attention any more than we would something from Fox News.

I'm going to push back on this.. VR has posted things from plenty of mainstream U.S. and international media, including PBS, CNN, NYT and the BBC. Zarathud has dismissed all of it given that it has been critical of Israel. You are implying that everything VR is posting is Newsmax quality, and it just isn't.

[Blackhawk]

I did single out questionable news sources, and I was speaking only to those things that have garnered a general negative reaction.

As to people reacting negatively to valid sources, there's no denying that VR's developed a reputation from, in a manner of speaking, crying wolf. After quoting enough questionable sources, the person doing the quoting becomes a questionable source.

[gbasden]

I did single out questionable news sources, and I was speaking only to those things that have garnered a general negative reaction.

As to people reacting negatively to valid sources, there's no denying that VR's developed a reputation from, in a manner of speaking, crying wolf. After quoting enough questionable sources, the person doing the quoting becomes a questionable source.

I am fond of Zarathud, but he has been equally as unyielding on the pro-Israel side, and yet he isn't getting called out for being a "questionable source".

[Blackhawk]

If you go back a couple of months, I (and a few others) were ranting just as loudly about (and to) him.

[Unagi]

I'm more-or-less in line with VR's position on a lot of this.
And I don't "not like" him/her, and I've often been happy to read their posts in the past.

Personally, I am willing to write and read about these topics (from VR's to Zarathud's), but that's different from just labelling a 10-minute YouTube video with "He's right" , and if ya watch it, then you will know my position.

And that's not a problem, in-and-of-itself... It's just that VR had started and continued to occasionally post 2, 3, 4, or even 6 videos - all in a row.
The commentary added, often were just things like "Biden is wrong" or "I guess America isn't so great after all".
And this, even after being almost begged to stop doing it...

I think I'm frustrated because I don't want your posts/YouTubeVideo Links to be the thing that makes people stop listening. And it's happening.
Do you hear what I am saying, VR?


Totally aside from that is the nature of the message; the source - and its intended audience.

I seriously appreciate a point of view from outside the USA. Historically, over the years, I've enjoyed a great number of VR's posts.

On this topic, on which we are apparently mostly in agreement, as an American who (still) likes to think we are a country whose citizens can control its direction and future, I find it greatly frustrating to hear from Jakarta that Biden isn't doing enough. It's as if I could have done (or in the next few months do ) something other than to vote for Biden - if my goal is to help some random 500 Palestinian kids not be killed.

So, yeah. I'm sorry if I came across rude in my 'for fuck sakes' post. And I appreciate everyone (VR & Zarathud included) that have tried to make some good of it.