ToZanarkand
Some day the dream will end
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User ID: 2935
ToZanarkand
Some day the dream will end
2d ago
Do the Maronites have the right to build an ethnostate and maintain it at whatever the cost?
Wasn't that the basis of the foundation of Lebanon?
This is basically my position - I think it would be great if Australia (for example) gave the Jews a chunk of their desert or whatever. But as you say, not going to happen.
Francesca Albanese's report to the UN. I know you said that she is "cartoonishly anti-Israeli" but if you can spot any lies in here that I missed feel free to point them out.
This is just an appeal to authority. If there are particularly compelling arguments, you can reproduce them directly here.
There's actually no point relying on the number of civilians killed to identify genocide or ethnic cleansing, because by the time those figures tell you that a genocide is occurring it is already too late to do anything about it, and the point of identifying genocide/ethnic cleansing is to make sure it doesn't happen again.
So there's no point gathering evidence to support your claim? That's a bold position to take.
For what it's worth, I don't find the argument about whether or not Israel is actually a committing a genocide to be that interesting - the answer is just so clearly and blatantly yes.
That's not really an argument. I could just as easily say the answer is so clearly and blatantly no.
I like these conversations a lot more when the Israeli side is willing to admit that they're a blood-drenched, bronze-age state intent on ethnic purity and conquest via force of arms to reclaim the territory their god said was theirs - when you're willing to admit that there are actual conversations that can be had.
I think your mask might be slipping here. But I'm not surprised you like these conversations more when your opponent just admits you're right and they're wrong. You do have to do the work of convincing them first, though.
Incidentally I'm curious as to where you get the idea that Israel is intent on ethnic purity. You do know that 20% of the population is Arab, right?
ToZanarkand
Some day the dream will end
2d ago
Who cares?
Anyone who feels the fact that they're Jewish gives them some sort of special credibility when it comes to criticising Israel. Which is sort of what these people want to imply, otherwise why point out that they're Jewish at all?
They're an example of jews for whom their Jewishness is a central element of their life and still oppose Israel.
Right, but they'd oppose it whether or not there was a war in Gaza. Given that's what this discussion is all about, their opinion isn't relevant.
ToZanarkand
Some day the dream will end
2d ago
That's excellent.
ToZanarkand
Some day the dream will end
3d ago
I feel like the entire rest of society, particularly the woke end has decided that the rape of women is a small price to pay for feeling progressive about letting transgender women into women’s spaces — without vetting at all.
I think what's more accurate is that they've convinced themselves that it simply "doesn't happen", or that "no one transitions just so they can use women's bathrooms".
ToZanarkand
Some day the dream will end
3d ago
but second, that's their problem, not mine.
In all fairness, taking steps to mitigate the externalities of your actions is a pretty core component of being generally pro-social.
ToZanarkand
Some day the dream will end
3d ago
She broke rank with the squad on Israel right before the campus protests turned ugly.
Wait, she did?
ToZanarkand
Some day the dream will end
3d ago
It’s nearly always spectacularly easy to “clock” an MtF - especially once you hear the voice.
Are there studies on this or is this anecdotal? If the latter, you wouldn't be able to account for the MtFs you're missing precisely because they do pass.
ToZanarkand
Some day the dream will end
3d ago
I think the hate of Elon is definitely fresher than that of Trump. I'm not sure it's necessarily greater in intensity.
ToZanarkand
Some day the dream will end
3d ago
This is an old argument that we've seen a lot of times before. "I suspect the majority of these people are only Scottish by parentage, and don't actually live their lives in any way that's discernibly and truly Scottish".
That doesn't make it any less valid. Biden got a lot of flak for his whole "I'm Irish" shtick. But at least he invoked his heritage fairly frequently and in a variety of situations. It's clear it meant something to him. I strongly suspect that for the majority of these "I'm Jewish and I don't like Israel" types their Judaism means nothing to them in any other context.
But either way there's a decently sized population of orthodox jews who reject Israel for scriptural reasons as well.
Sure, but I don't know what relation that bears to non-orthodox Jews who are anti-Israel.
This is the number of dead that they're able to verify, which is extremely difficult for a variety of reasons. There's another 10000 that are missing and can safely be presumed dead as well, and I believe about 90000 with severe injuries. I don't think we're going to get true or accurate casualty numbers until after the war ends, and even then I have my doubts.
It makes very little sense to accuse Israel of genocide/ethnic cleansing if you claim that you we don't have a reasonable sense of the numbers of civilians killed. What are you even basing the accusation on then?
I have seen too many photos of dead Palestinian children to give the story that little credibility. On top of that, Israeli murder of children is common enough even outside the conflict that there are a lot of reports of it from the west bank as well. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/nov/19/west-bank-children-killed-unprecedented-rate
The article doesn't give any evidence. I'm not saying none of this happened, but I think it's very likely the Guardian would simply reprint potentially made-up stories without any due-diligence, so long as they paint Israel in a negative light.
If you've got a comprehensive debunking of the x-ray claims I'd like to see it, but I've seen enough direct video footage of these kinds of attacks that I can't just brush the claim off wholesale,
I'll have a look. I'm also interested in direct video evidence of Israelis shooting infants in the head.
https://x.com/FranceskAlbs/status/1858304872963010840 Franceska Albanese makes the claim here.
Albanese's whole thing is being cartoonishly anti-Israeli. If she was at least providing evidence that might mean something, but her simply repeating the claim means very little.
There are countless claims from released Palestinian prisoners that rape and sexual abuse was endemic in Israeli prisons - and Israelis themselves (including high ranking government officials!) have protested any attempt to hold the perpetrators accountable.
I wouldn't remotely put it past Palestinian prisoners (who are mostly terrorists) to simply make things up to try and make Israel look bad. Such propaganda is a core pillar of their strategy. But sure, every accuser has a right to be heard. Perhaps Israel really does treat prisoners that badly. This really doesn't add much to the argument that Israel is carrying out ethnic cleansing/genocide.
So that this debate doesn't get derailed into a series of speculations about the veracity of individual accusations against Israel, it's worth reflecting on the path of this discussion, which seems to be following the typical route with anti-Israel individuals, which is to accuse them of genocide, and when challenged to defend that position on the basis of the numbers, pivot to a mass of unsubstantiated claims of supposed Israeli atrocities. All those atrocities could have actually happened, and they still wouldn't support the ethnic-cleansing argument.
ETA: Some links RE the x-rays:
ToZanarkand
Some day the dream will end
3d ago
For the most part, this sounds like the main advantage of withdrawing from the treaty was to make a point (apart from point c in your final paragraph)? Not meaning to be snarky, just wondering if I inferred correctly.
ToZanarkand
Some day the dream will end
3d ago
If you have some really rigorous and verifiable data on casualty numbers in Gaza, please share it.
No one does, because the only sources are Hamas. We can be generous and take their figure, which seems to be about 40000 last time I checked. Assuming 15-20000 of those deaths are Hamas fighters, that leaves us with a civilian death toll that is really quite modest in scale in comparison with many recent conflicts that people get far less emotional about.
As for Hamas putting the civilians in harms way, I disagree with your framing - there are just too many instances of the Israelis murdering people who aren't anywhere near Hamas. Take all those x-rays of children's brains with bullets in them - in what possible world was it necessary to snipe those toddlers to go after Hamas?
I think the chances that story is true are almost nil. The NYT was passed those "X-rays" by a bunch of local "reporters" (i.e. almost certainly Hamas militants) and just ran with the story they'd been told. IIRC there were all sorts of flaws with the claim, such as the fact that the X-rays showed the bullets still being in the children's skulls when a sniper bullet would have passed gone straight through and out the other end, the bullets in the image not resembling fired bullets, not matching those used by Israel etc.
That surgeon who got raped to death in an Israeli prison was already in a prison, and that didn't stop Israel from doing what it did to him.
I haven't heard this story, do you have a source? People getting abused in prison is something that happens with regrettable frequency all over the world. A single example - that I'm fairly certain wasn't sanctioned by the government/military - seems insufficient to help build a case that Israel is acting with unprecedented levels of brutality towards Palestinian civilians.
I'm not one of them, but there are a lot of young jews with left wing political views, and those views have a very clear and definite position on what's taking place in Gaza right now.
I suspect the majority of these people are only Jewish by parentage and don't actually live their lives in any way that's discernably Jewish (happy to be proven wrong on this), and therefore their being Jewish doesn't lend any particular credibility to their position on the issue. It's much the same as me saying "as a gay person I disagree with the democrats position on LGBT rights" when I've never actually had sex with men myself, but I happen to have a close relative who's gay.
The left wing generally views ethnic cleansing in defence of a blood-and-soil ethnostate to be one of the greatest possible crimes you can commit, the sort that would stain the history of a people forever (just look at Germany).
That doesn't explain the pre-occupation with Israel. If what they're doing is ethnic cleansing, then it's the most ineffectual example I've ever heard of.
"Huge swathes" of civilians die in any war, and there are plenty of recent conflicts were civilians were killed in much higher numbers, and much more deliberately, than in Gaza.
The huge focus of certain people on the nature of the purported "murder" that Israel is apparantly carrying out, that is completely at odds with the comparatively unremarkable scale of civilian suffering in Gaza, betrays the fact that it's not civilian casualties they're truly animated by, as much as it is a hatred of Israel (...or another group of people).
ToZanarkand
Some day the dream will end
3d ago
Trump and Russia are extremely unpopular in the UK - we just had a general election where the Trumpy party got 14% of the popular vote and 5/650 seats.
This is mostly a nitpick in the context of the rest of your post but a third party getting 14% of the vote in the UK is a pretty big deal.
ToZanarkand
Some day the dream will end
4d ago
Continuing with the recent theme of geopolitical posts:
What's the steelman for Trump's withdrawal from the JCPOA ("The Iran Deal") in 2018?
I feel I've only seen universal condemnation for this decision from the editorial sections of journals, newspapers and other forms of media, with defenses only mounted by the occasional conservative pundit. Naturally, it's not hard to find elected Republicans in favour of pulling out, but it's difficult to tell how much of that is due to partisanship vs their objective thoughts on the situation. Still, the increasing political homogenisation and partisanship of mainstream media over the last few years (or maybe I'm naive and it's always been like this) means that I no longer assume that their editorial stances are primarily motivated out of concern for the truth either, so I'm curious about the opinions of people here. While I asked for the steelman for pulling out, as I'm particularly interesting in hearing the defenses of this decision, I'm keen to hear people's thoughts about the deal more generally.
To help with sparking some dialogue, here are some angles from which I think it's interesting to come at the topic:
1/ To what extent does whether or not the deal was good for the US depend on political positioning (i.e. interventionist/isolationist, pro-Israel vs anti-Israel (and possible SA?), attitudes regarding oil/other commodities, etc)?
2/ Even if the deal was bad, was it bad enough that withdrawing from it was a net positive for the US?
3/ Regardless of whether withdrawing was correct or not, have the two US administrations acted sensibly in advancing their ME aims (which are obviously not identical) in this post-JCPOA reality?
Feel free to ignore the above suggestions however and come at the topic any way you like!
ToZanarkand
Some day the dream will end
6d ago
they would not be hurting others, at least not in any direct way.
Unless they're buying them for children.
There are practical factors, like maybe some medications are supply-restricted so it's necessary for doctors to prescribe them only to people who actually need them. But it's for similar reasons that there's no country where all drugs are legal - most societies have decided to operate with a degree of paternalism regarding what other people can and can't do to themselves.
ToZanarkand
Some day the dream will end
7d ago
Yep, that's what people were colloquially (and maybe even officially, I don't remember) calling the day all restrictions were set to be lifted. I don't recall any limitations being re-imposed after that. I admit that for a while if you tested positive for covid you were still required to self-isolate for 10-14 days, but I wouldn't call that hysteria.
Prominent health officials were arguing for re-establishing some level of restrictions around the time of the Omicron variant but Boris Johnson overrode them on that.
ToZanarkand
Some day the dream will end
7d ago
"The sum of"?
ToZanarkand
Some day the dream will end
8d ago
I can only relate my experience of what happened in the UK, as that's where I was living at the time, but fwiw this isn't really how things played out there. Once we reached mid-2021 all restrictions were lifted and people broadly went back to living their lives normally. There was some debate about whether to shut things down again due to Omicron, but this ended up not happening.
ToZanarkand
Some day the dream will end
8d ago
Oh fucking bullshit. The war in Ukraine ended the covid pandemic hysteria.
Covid hysteria was pretty much entirely over in the UK (thanks to vaccines!) by the time of the Ukraine war.
ToZanarkand
Some day the dream will end
10d ago
Her being anti-lgbt, with a track record of policies that would otherwise be fairly progressive, she seems like a standard, good pick for almost any position in ... any president's cabinet?
Having had a quick look at her wikipedia page, I'm not sure I'd describe her as anti-lgbt. Also, There are many presidents/potential presidents for whom being ant-lgbt would disqualify you from a position in their cabinet.
Lol
But seriously, beyond the usual "these rules don't apply to non-whites" position that many leftists implicitly or explicitly hold, one way I've seen people try to resolve this cognitive dissonance is that they claim that Arabs voluntarily took in and sheltered large numbers of Jews escaping from the Holocaust, and only later decided they wanted to kill all of them because the Jews started oppressing them, or something.
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