Israel - Palestine discussion thread

[Joey D]

aLl US sOlDiErS aRe wAr cRiMiNaLs

Meanwhile, they support Benjamin Naziyahu committing war crimes freely.

Netanyahu mulls plan to empty northern Gaza of civilians and cut off aid to those left inside

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is examining a plan to seal off humanitarian aid to northern Gaza in an attempt to starve out Hamas militants.

apnews.com

 

[HenrySwanson]

From The Times' letters to editor:

Sir, Max Hastings (Oct 12) is right to highlight the absurd claims of those who, ignoring the geopolitical reality, champion either the destruction of Israel or a two-state solution. However, his apocalyptic vision of an apartheid one-state Greater Israel is not the only alternative. The Balfour declaration of 1917, and the subsequent mandate, proposed the creation of a homeland for the Jewish people but one that would protect the rights of all inhabitants of Palestine regardless of faith or background. This did not come to pass; the result has been a hundred years of hostility. Yet, if all its citizens were declared equal before the law and treated with the same degree of tolerance, overseen by a power-sharing executive, the nation could become a beacon of civilisation in a dark world.

(I swear it wasn't me)

 

[Carbonox]

and capturing other countries for dinner.

The irony of course being that for all the overseas fighting the US have done lately, none has resulted in annexation of territory.

 

[inCloud]

none has resulted in annexation of territory

Iraq, Afghanistan were under occupation for how long?

 

[Sprite]

Iraq, Afghanistan were under occupation for how long?

Occupation: “the action, state, or period of occupying or being occupied by military force.”

Annexation: “annexation, a formal act whereby a state proclaims its sovereignty over territory hitherto outside its domain. Unlike cession, whereby territory is given or sold through treaty, annexation is a unilateral act made effective by actual possession and legitimized by general recognition.”

So… not the same thing.

 

[inCloud]

So… not the same thing.

Original quote was

capturing other countries

So, occupied is fine, IMO.

Last US annexed territory was Hawaii, AFAIK.

 

[McLaren]

Last US annexed territory was Hawaii, AFAIK.

Which was trying to re-strengthen its monarchy status after years of power struggle between Kingdom & the foreign business men. Note that the US also actually acknowledged its wrong doings.

 

[Blood Eagle]

I received this letter when I was a young war criminal. It was pretty clear that our mission was to rape and pillage.

 

[Touring Mars]

US gives Israel 30 days to boost Gaza aid or risk cuts to military support

The letter, sent on Sunday, amounts to the strongest known written warning from the US to its ally.

www.bbc.co.uk

Long overdue, but a timely and very strong message to Israel to rein in their despicable treatment of the people of Gaza.

I guess the Harris Biden administration have finally had enough of Netanyahu ignoring them, and a reminder of who underwrites security of the State of Israel is in order.

That said, the US and other allies of Israel tread a fine line between reining in Israeli aggression and not wavering in the face of increasingly hostile and multilateral threats against Israel and Western interests in the Middle East - it's a dichotomy that the US, Israel and their allies are now facing - the axis of Iran, China, North Korea and Russia would like nothing more than the US to limit support for Israel, while at the same time not caring a jot about what atrocities Israel carries out in order to defend its interests against the axis that opposes them.

 

[inCloud]

I received this letter when I was a young war criminal. It was pretty clear that our mission was to rape and pillage.

Did you find vial of Anthrax? Somehow two years of Iraq war caused more civilian deathes than two years of Russo-Ukranian War, with higher civilians/combatants death rate. No Better Friend my ass.

 

[Scaff]

Let's get this thread back on topic and cut out the personal attacks.

Not a debate point, its an instruction.

 

[Blood Eagle]

Did you find vial of Anthrax? Somehow two years of Iraq war caused more civilian deathes than two years of Russo-Ukranian War, with higher civilians/combatants death rate. No Better Friend my ass.

I wish I knew how to read but am too dumb.

Also there were chemical weapons in Iraq and plenty of US service members were injured by them. But it wasn't the type of WMDs that got the invasion greenlighted. But I didn't personally make that call.

VA.gov | Veterans Affairs

Apply for and manage the VA benefits and services you’ve earned as a Veteran, Servicemember, or family member—like health care, disability, education, and more.

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U.S. soldiers were injured by Iraq chemical weapons, report shows

DOWNLOAD VIDEO A new documentary from The New York Times reveals that American soldiers…

www.pbs.org

The Secret Casualties of Iraq’s Abandoned Chemical Weapons (Published 2014)

The Pentagon kept silent as munitions left over from Saddam Hussein’s war with Iran found new targets from 2004 to 2011: American and Iraqi troops.

www.nytimes.com

I can tell you what we did find, large groups of foreign fighters flooding the country, taking over villages and threatening civilians with death if they did not comply and fortification of entire villages and cities. Hiding caches of weapons inside houses where a regular family might live. Sometimes you'd even talk to some villagers and find out Uncle Ahmed wasn't really who he claimed to be, but the people were too afraid to come forward because they were coerced into a terrible moral conundrum. We created that power vacuum unfortunately. Sometimes when you look at casualty stats, you have to maybe factor in that I did my best to spread the word that if you were here, we are going to consider you hostile and that you should leave. And if you need help with that, let us know. Also that I wasn't the one who emplaced that IED that killed a bunch of civilians. I wasn't the one that used vehicle based IEDs. I wasn't the one that detonated the suicide bomb. Do you just think all death in was was caused by us or do you see how death toll numbers have several factors and dismiss that we weren't the ones doing all the killing? Please help, I'm too dumb to read.

 

[Joey D]

the axis of Iran, China, North Korea and Russia would like nothing more than the US to limit support for Israel

I'm not so sure. They probably want us to keep supporting them since that directs weapon production capacity away from arming their foes. The more we have to ship to the Israelis, the less it gets shipped to Taiwan, South Korea, and Ukraine. Iran is probably salivating over the US cutting support though. Without the US to bail Israel out time and time again with weapons shipments, Iran will cause significant problems for Israel.

Also there were chemical weapons in Iraq and plenty of US service members were injured by them. But it wasn't the type of WMDs that got the invasion greenlighted. But I didn't personally make that call.

In all likelihood, weren't the WMD that got the invasion greenlit just moved? I mean it wasn't really a secret that the US was coming in.

 

[Blood Eagle]

In all likelihood, weren't the WMD that got the invasion greenlit just moved? I mean it wasn't really a secret that the US was coming in.

They hid them from UN inspectors and buried them in the ground. But @inCloud asked if we found "a vile of Anthrax". Basically alluding to there was nothing there. There was it just wasn't nukes like the Bush administration tried to frame it as. But I'll concede to the mod request to get this thread back on track. Too dumb to read anyways.

 

[Touring Mars]

I'm not so sure. They probably want us to keep supporting them since that directs weapon production capacity away from arming their foes. The more we have to ship to the Israelis, the less it gets shipped to Taiwan, South Korea, and Ukraine. Iran is probably salivating over the US cutting support though. Without the US to bail Israel out time and time again with weapons shipments, Iran will cause significant problems for Israel.

I agree to a large extent - I guess my point is that the Iranian/Russian axis will continue to provoke Israeli responses becausethey stand to gain whether the US ramps up support or withdraws it, unless and until the axis itself is attacked, and Russia (with Chinese support) reckon that the US (and allies) don't have the balls to take on Iran - or Russia - or China - directly.

I think, however, that Iran have pushed their luck too far and Israel will attack Iran very soon - and this will likely force the US hand into supporting them further; but the US have a legitimate reason for demanding that Israel, at the very least, end their disgraceful treatment of the people of Gaza, irrespective of whether the anti-Israeli axis are doing their utmost to prolong the suffering of the Gazan people, but the danger is that an all-out war between Iran and Israel will render the whole situation in Gaza moot.

 

[HenrySwanson]

They probably want us to keep supporting them since that directs weapon production capacity away from arming their foes. The more we have to ship to the Israelis, the less it gets shipped to Taiwan, South Korea, and Ukraine.

The longer Israel goes on like this the more people associate against it, and with that the greater anti-West sentiment builds because of its association through arming them.

 

[Eunos_Cosmo]

I agree to a large extent - I guess my point is that the Iranian/Russian axis will continue to provoke Israeli responses becausethey stand to gain whether the US ramps up support or withdraws it, unless and until the axis itself is attacked, and Russia (with Chinese support) reckon that the US (and allies) don't have the balls to take on Iran - or Russia - or China - directly.

I think, however, that Iran have pushed their luck too far and Israel will attack Iran very soon - and this will likely force the US hand into supporting them further; but the US have a legitimate reason for demanding that Israel, at the very least, end their disgraceful treatment of the people of Gaza, irrespective of whether the anti-Israeli axis are doing their utmost to prolong the suffering of the Gazan people, but the danger is that an all-out war between Iran and Israel will render the whole situation in Gaza moot.

I am very curious to see what extent Russia will go to defend Iran. If Russia were to suddenly deploy S400 batteries in Iran....then what?

edit: Ok...it looks like Iran already has some Russian S400s as of a few months ago. When Israel launched strikes into Iran back in April they did not have this system. It's supposedly capable of engaging an F35. If that's true, things could get messy.

 

[HenrySwanson]

‘This is monstrous’: babies among 23 dead in attack on Lebanon

Airstrike on refuge for displaced people in Aitou, allegedly a Hezbollah target, has drawn international condemnation

www.thetimes.com

Father Estephan Frangieh, general manager of the Saydet Zgharta University Medical Centre down the mountain from Aitou, where many of the victims were treated, said he believed that the attack was an attempt to sow discord in the community.

“The people coming here are not from the moon, they are coming from Lebanon and they know each other,” he said. “The attack here in this area is a way for Israel to say, ‘Don’t accept the Shia Muslims’.” He grew angry as he asked whether, even if a Hezbollah member had been in the building, it was legal to destroy the property. “There are rules in war, but this is monstrous,” he said.

Tide is turning even in the very pro-Israel Times comment section (it has a large Jewish readership). This is the most recommended:

 

[Eunos_Cosmo]

Just bombing the mayor of a town of a foreign country, normal nation stuff.

Nabatieh governor Howaida Turk tells the BBC the Israeli strikes that killed the mayor of the city, and four other municipality staff on Wednesday, happened during a meeting of a crisis team co-ordinating aid for civilians remaining in the area.


The governor says the known number of dead is six – five municipality staff and one member of the public who was in a nearby building.


She says the number of dead could yet increase because the rubble was still being searched.


The mayor, Ahmad Kahil, and other municipality staff had stayed behind in Nabatieh to assist people who had not fled, Turk says. The majority of the population of Nabatieh has left the area following heavy Israeli air strikes.


"This is just like strikes all over Lebanon," she says. "They have hit civilians, Red Cross, civil defence. Now they have targeted a government building. It is unacceptable. It is a massacre."


Previous strikes on Nabatieh in recent days have destroyed historic buildings, including an Ottoman-era market dating to 1910.

 

[inCloud]

Just bombing the mayor of a town of a foreign country, normal nation stuff.

Isn't he Hezbollah member?

 

[60fpshacks]

I wonder if this ever happened.

 

[Joey D]

Even if Nabatieh's governor Howaida Turk is Hezbolah, that doesn't exactly excuse Israel from killing 16 people and injuring 52. Once again, Israel has one of the most elite fighting forces in the world, if they want to target someone, they can, but they don't care because they just want to kill Muslims.

I wonder if this ever happened.
View attachment 1398005

I don't even know how that would work. For one thing, religion isn't a genetic marker. Someone with 100% sub-Saharan African lineages can be Jewish, just like someone with 100% Nordic lineage. There would be no way to distinguish that. Even then, the genetic markers for people in the Middle East region are fairly similar since a majority all descend from the tribes that inhabited the region thousands of years ago. There are some genetic markers for Ashkenazi Jews, but not every person in Israel is an Ashkenazi Jew. So even if they did develop a weapon, it would likely take out a sizeable portion of the Israeli population.

Can I see Israel attempting to do something like this, though? Yes, they're keen on genocide, but it's easier just to bomb civilians than to develop a complex weapon that likely wouldn't work anyway.

 

[Eunos_Cosmo]

Even if Nabatieh's governor Howaida Turk is Hezbolah, that doesn't exactly excuse Israel from killing 16 people and injuring 52. Once again, Israel has one of the most elite fighting forces in the world, if they want to target someone, they can, but they don't care because they just want to kill Muslims.


I don't even know how that would work. For one thing, religion isn't a genetic marker. Someone with 100% sub-Saharan African lineages can be Jewish, just like someone with 100% Nordic lineage. There would be no way to distinguish that. Even then, the genetic markers for people in the Middle East region are fairly similar since a majority all descend from the tribes that inhabited the region thousands of years ago. There are some genetic markers for Ashkenazi Jews, but not every person in Israel is an Ashkenazi Jew. So even if they did develop a weapon, it would likely take out a sizeable portion of the Israeli population.

Can I see Israel attempting to do something like this, though? Yes, they're keen on genocide, but it's easier just to bomb civilians than to develop a complex weapon that likely wouldn't work anyway.

The Kosher/Halal Parser is the holy grail of Israel's defense R&D

 

[inCloud]

I wonder if this ever happened.

Jews aren't some genetically close group, everyone can be converted into Jew

 

[60fpshacks]

Jews aren't some genetically close group, everyone can be converted into Jew

If that were true, then tay-sachs wouldn't be almost exclusive to them.
Also:

 

[Joey D]

If that were true, then tay-sachs wouldn't be almost exclusive to them.
Also:
View attachment 1398017

Tay-Sachs isn't exclusive to Ashkenazi Jews, Cajuns and French-Canadian populations are at risk for the genetic disorder too. It's not common among Sephardic, San Nicandro, Romaniotes, or Italkim Jews. It's found in certain "founder populations." The American Irish have a decent chance of being carriers of it as well.

When my wife got pregnant, we had to be screened for Tay-Sachs since I have French-Canadian ancestry and she's descended from Ashkenazi Jews.

The whole Jews being a race thing is ridiculous. There are cultural similarities among Jewish communities, but that's no different than cultural similarities among the Scottish. There are Jewish ethnic groups, but in terms of race, I don't see how that would work.

 

[inCloud]

If that were true, then tay-sachs wouldn't be almost exclusive to them.

Its almost exclusive to Ashkenazi, not all Jews

Also

Conversion to Judaism - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org