burleigh wrote:

Roadkill wrote:

Hamas put a death toll out 15 mins after the explosion. And most media outlets ran with it. Hamas said Israel bombed the hospital and most media outlets ran with it.

media outlets run it. The Dill swallows it

only yesterday burleigh wrote:
"It's very clear the Israel bombed the hospital.'

Roadkill wrote:

burleigh wrote:

Roadkill wrote:

Hamas put a death toll out 15 mins after the explosion. And most media outlets ran with it. Hamas said Israel bombed the hospital and most media outlets ran with it.

media outlets run it. The Dill swallows it

only yesterday burleigh wrote:

"It's very clear the Israel bombed the hospital.'

We don't call you The Dill for nothing.

goofyfoot wrote:

indo-dreaming wrote:

dandandan wrote:

indo-dreaming wrote:

Explosion hits hospital in Gaza.

Now lets be real.

Whats far more likely?

1. It was Israel that doesnt just fire rockets randomly and can pin point targets with jet fighters and have zero reason to hit a hospital, doing so only favours Hamas and muppets like Jelly who will go see who the bad guys are, the terrorist are the good guys.

.

If you are saying Israel doesn't just fire rockets randomly, are you accepting that so far Israel has pin pointed and killed more than 3000 people, at least 750 of them children, wounded 12 800, blown up a UN school that was being used as evacuation shelter? Is that the kind of pin point accuracy you are saying they have? Not to mention that they have cut off food, water, and power to a point that the UN today say they fear people are dehydrating to death. Is it really that impossible to imagine, after declaring they will wipe Palestinians off the map and reduce Gaza to rubble, that they would also fire rockets at a hospital?

Im guessing you missed the Sam Harris post from the other day that everybody should read and everyone needs to understand before even commenting in this thread, so this wont be the last time i repost it.

The reality is most countries keep all military seperate from civilians, but Hamas do the complete opposite they purposely put all bases in the same buildings a civilians live or work even school's, the purposely shot rockets from right next to house, schools etc so that Israel targets these locations, so yes even if at times they give warnings so civilians can evacuate yes sadly some get killed

BTW. The water has been put back on apparently, but have you even thought about how or why a country can cut off the others water or electricity?

Gaza attacks Israel all the time yet it still provides them water and energy in normal times, they could and have every right to just say you see us as your enemy we aren't providing you anything (If you dont know Hamas is actually the Gaza government as well as military ) the deal on water and energy was only suppose to temporary but here we are almost 20 years latter

Rabbits68 wrote:

Food for thought....

This is a transcript of a recorded podcast.

Sam Harris

The Sin of Moral Equivalence

I want to say a few things about recent events in Israel. I’m sure I will do future podcasts about this and speak with a wide range of relevant experts. But, for the moment, I would like to say something brief that stands a chance of being useful, as we watch the initial expressions of support for Israel begin to decay, as it wages war in Gaza and perhaps beyond.

As many of you know, I spent years talking about the clash, as I see it, between Western civilization and Islam. Specifically, I’ve spoken and written about the connection between the actual doctrines of Islam and jihadist violence. Of course, this violence has fallen out of the news in recent years, especially since the collapse of the Islamic State. Even I have stopped thinking much about it, but I’ve been under no illusion that the problem has gone away. Those of you who have been following my work for 20 years know that I’ve said everything I have to say on this topic, ad nauseam. And I’m sure I’ll periodically just repeat myself for the rest of my life—because eruptions of jihadist violence, and the attendant secular moral confusion about it, will be with us for generations.

However, I don’t want to rehash any of my criticism of Islam here. I’ll just briefly remind you of what I believe, which is that there is no possibility of living in peace with jihadists. So, whether we want to admit it or not, we are perpetually at war with them. And we must win a war of ideas with everyone, both within the Muslim world and outside it, who is confused about that—and there are legions of the confused. And there is no place on Earth where the truth about jihadism is more obvious or excruciating, and moral confusion about it more reprehensible, than Israel today.

But leaving all of that to one side, for the moment I’d like to make a very simple point, that really shouldn’t be at all controversial—because it doesn’t prejudge any of the questions that people might disagree about. You don’t have to agree with me about Islam, or about the role it plays in inspiring conflict. The point I’m making now says nothing about the causes of the recent violence in Israel—and yet it cuts through all the arguments and pseudo-arguments that attempt to paint some moral equivalence between Israel and its enemies, or to justify the actions of Hamas as though they were a response to Israeli provocations—to the growth of settlements, or the daily humiliation of living under occupation. Incidentally, there has been no occupation of Gaza since 2005, when Israel withdrew from the territory unilaterally, forcibly removing 9000 of its own citizens, and literally digging up Jewish graves. The Israelis have been out of Gaza for nearly 20 years. And yet they have been attacked from Gaza ever since.

But even a statement like that wades too far in controversy. I want you to step back… Whatever you think about the origins of this conflict, whatever you believe about the role that religion plays here (or doesn’t play), whatever you think about colonialism, or globalism, or any other ‘ism, whether you’re a fan of Noam Chomsky or Samuel Huntington, you should be able to acknowledge the following claims to be both descriptively true and ethically important.

At this moment in history, there are people and cultures that harbor very different attitudes about violence and the value of human life. There are people and cultures that rejoice, positively rejoice—dancing in the streets rejoicing—over the massacre of innocent civilians; conversely there are people and cultures that seek to avoid killing innocent civilians, and deeply regret it when they do—and they occasionally prosecute and imprison their own soldiers when they violate this modern norm of combat.

There are people and cultures who revel in the anguish of hostages and prisoners of war—who will parade them before cheering mobs, and often allow them to be assaulted, or raped, or even murdered. They will desecrate their bodies in public, and all of this carnage is a cause for jubilation. Conversely, there are people and cultures who find such barbarism revolting—and, again, would be inclined to prosecute anyone on their own side who took part in it.

In short, there are people and cultures who revel in war crimes—and who do not hide these crimes or their celebration of them but, rather, proudly broadcast their savagery for all the world to see. Conversely, there are people and cultures who have given us the concept of a war crime as a sacred prohibition—and as a safeguard in the ongoing project of maintaining the moral progress of civilization.

One point to concede, and this will absorb all the nuance and nonsense that is now percolating in the brains of many listeners: It is, of course, true that we in the West have been on the wrong side of these dichotomies in the past. Most Western armies, including Israel’s, have at one time or another been guilty of war crimes. And if you go back far enough, all of human conflict was just a litany of war crimes. And you don’t have to go back all that far, in fact, to find large pockets of Western culture that were morally indistinguishable from what we now see in much of the Muslim world. If you have any doubt about this, study the photos of white mobs celebrating the lynchings that occurred in the American South in the first half of the 20th century: where seemingly whole towns—thousands of men, women and children—turned out as though for a carnival to watch some young man or woman be tortured to death and then strung up on a tree or lamppost for all to see.

Seeing the pictures of these people in their Sunday best, having arranged themselves for a postcard photo under a dangling, and lacerated, and often partially cremated person, is one thing, but realize that these genteel people—who considered themselves good Christians—often took souvenirs of the body home to show their friends—teeth, ears, fingers, knee caps, internal organs—and sometimes displayed them in their places of business.

So I’m not claiming that there are permanent differences between groups of people. I’m talking about the power of ideas that happen to be ascendant at any given time and place. I’m talking about beliefs and whole worldviews that come into being in one culture and have yet to come into being in others. The point, of course, is that if we recognize the monstrosities of the past, we should recognize the monstrosities of the present, and acknowledge that at this moment in human history not every group has the same ethical norms governing its use of violence. For whatever reason. Perhaps religion has nothing to do with it.

Consider just one of these norms: Whenever an armed conflict breaks out, some groups will use human shields, and others will be deterred, to one degree or another, by their use. To be clear, I’m not talking about the taking of hostages from the opposing side for the purpose of using them as human shields. That is appalling, and it is now happening in Gaza, but it is separate crime. I’m talking about something far more inscrutable—it’s astounding, really, that it happens at all—I’m talking about people who will strategically put their own noncombatants, their own women and children, into the line of fire so that they can inflict further violence upon their enemies, knowing that their enemies have a more civilized moral code that will render them reluctant to shoot back, for fear of killing or maiming innocent noncombatants. If anywhere in this universe cynicism and nihilism can be found together in their most perfect forms, it is here.

Jihadists use their own people as human shields routinely. Hamas fires rockets from hospitals and mosques and schools and other sites calculated to create carnage if the Israelis return fire. There were cases in the war in Iraq where jihadists literally rested the barrels of their guns on the shoulders of children. They blew up crowds of their own children in order to kill US soldiers who were passing out candy to them. Conversely, the Israeli army routinely warns people to evacuate buildings before it bombs them.

Of course, during times of war, it common to dehumanize one’s enemy, to describe them as barbarous and evil. And it is natural for ethical and educated people to distrust such politically-charged language. But pay attention: I’m describing concrete behaviors—behaviors that occur on only one side of this conflict.

Just consider how absurd it would be to reverse the logic of human shields in this case: Imagine the Israelis using their own women and children as human shields against Hamas. Recognize how unthinkable this would be, not just for the Israelis to treat their own civilians in this way, but for them to expect that their enemies could be deterred by such a tactic, given who their enemies actually are.

Again, it is easy to lose sight of the moral distance here—which is strange. It’s like losing sight of the Grand Canyon when you are standing right on the edge of it. Take a moment to actually do the cognitive work: Imagine the Jews of Israel using their own women and children as human shields. And then imagine how Hamas, or Hezbollah, or al-Qaeda, or ISIS, or any other jihadist group would respond. The image you should now have in your mind is a masterpiece of moral surrealism. It is preposterous. It is a Monty Python sketch where all the Jews die.

Do you see what this asymmetry means? Can you see how deep it runs? Do you see what it tells you about the ethical difference between these two cultures?

There are not many bright lines that divide good and evil in our world, but this is one of them.

Of course, there is much more to talk about when considering the ethics of war and violence. And there’s much more to be confused about. For instance, as this war proceeds, many people will consider the deaths of noncombatants on the Palestinian side to be morally equivalent to the kids who were tortured and murdered at the peace concert by Hamas, or to the hostages who may yet be murdered and their murders broadcast on social media. But they’re not. There is a difference between collateral damage—which is, of course, a euphemism for innocent people killed in war—and the intentional massacre of civilians for the purpose of maximizing horror.

Simply the counting the number of dead bodies is not a way of judging the moral balance here. Intentions matter. It matters what kind of world people are attempting to build. If Israel wanted to perpetrate a genocide of the Palestinians, it could do that easily, tomorrow. But that isn’t what it wants. And the truth is the Jews of Israel would live in peace with their neighbors if their neighbors weren’t in thrall to genocidal fanatics.

In the West, we have advanced to a point where the killing of noncombatants, however unavoidable it becomes once wars start, is inadvertent and unwanted and regrettable and even scandalous. Yes, there are still war crimes. And I won’t be surprised if some Israelis commit war crimes in Gaza now. But, if they do, these will be exceptions that prove the rule—which is that Israel remains a lonely outpost of civilized ethics in the absolute moral wasteland that is the Middle East.

To deny that the government of Israel (with all of its flaws) is better than Hamas, to deny that Israeli culture (with all of its flaws) is better than Palestinian culture­ in its attitude toward violence, is to deny that moral progress itself is possible. If most Americans are better than their slaveholding ancestors, if most Germans today are better than the people who herded Jews into gas chambers, if the students protesting this war on your college campus—who are so conscientious that they lose sleep over crimes like “cultural appropriation” or using the wrong pronouns—if they are better than the racists and religious lunatics that inevitably lurk somewhere in their family trees—then we have to recognize that there is no moral equivalence now, between Israel and her enemies.

Dandandan how dare you question Indo!

Indo the arrogance in your replies is astounding.

The essayist states:

"Do you see what this asymmetry means? Can you see how deep it runs? Do you see what it tells you about the ethical difference between these two cultures?"

The article rightly points out this moral asymmetry. There can be no argument that the jihadists use of civilians as human shields is anything but abhorrent and reprehensible. Furthermore, Israel has an absolute right to the protect and guarantee the safety of its citizenry.

However, asymmetry is a double edged sword. This author absolutely fails to address the asymmetry of the military power differential, the asymmetry and control of economic opportunity, the asymmetry of oppression and subjugation of Palestinian people, the assymmetry of proportionality, the asymmetry of settlement encroachment. Notwithstanding, the lack of nationhood and identity for the Palestinian people, and their equal right to safety and security (from both within Palestine and from the Israeli state).

To lump an entire "people and culture" all together as being jihadists is dogmatic and simplistic and highlights the intractability of the conflict, with both sides poisoned by; millennia of mistrust and violence, capricious politicians, vested interests, interference from third parties (US, Iran, Russia et al.), religious fanaticism, polarisation of beliefs and a thirst for revenge.

burleigh wrote:

garyg1412 wrote:

Gotta love the University Of Social Media. All those people trained as infectious diseases experts two years ago have now been able to retrain themselves as Middle East experts.

The Facebook algorithms would be working flat stick at the moment trying to work which side of the horror story it wants to educate and entertain you with.

Well we were basically right about Covid and the yes23 ref, so i'll take this as a compliment.

I don't do compliments Burleigh - only sarcasm!!

Great post @ san Guine

This bloke in the vid and his family are grieving the loss of his parents.
- he displays an amazing example of stoicism, compassion and logic…

‘We seek no revenge, we just seek peace’.

Basic principles with the capacity for powerful results.

;)

.

Everybody wants peace….obviously…especially the Israelis….BUT…
Hamas and Iran want Israel wiped from the face of the earth….and they are proud to say it…..and will continue to try and do it….wouldn’t matter what Israel did or agreed to…..ever!
…this could be a bit of a hurdle don’t you think…..surely even jelly brain can understand that.

Not living up to your code name at all, as usual ;)
- surely the flopti brain can understand that working in absolutes and predetermined assumptions creates pessimism…

Considering the approach of an actual ‘optimist’ might serve you better - otherwise it’s a straight up contradiction… kind of like pretending to call yourself a christian, and then exhibiting no true christian qualities…
- like expressing constant anger, spewing vitriolic and false judgements on muslims and ppl of different or no faith, being aggressive and condescending to differing points of view and generally espousing principles that are the opposite of love, empathy and forgiveness. ;)

@garyg1412 …

You might like this fella ;)
- arab robin williams giving sarcasm and dark humour a place at the table…

This came up on Facebook this morning. I was not prepared for this and am still surprised Facebook has allowed it to remain for public viewing as it is.
Watch with a warning. It does show innocent people shot and killed and has no blurring. It is not nice.

From the editor: Please note I've deleted the video URL. Go looking for it if you must. There's no warning attached to this message, but from here on anyone posting graphic videos and images on Swellnet will receive one warning, and if they do it again they'll be banned. If they're subscribers we'll return any money owed.

Jelly Flater wrote:

Not living up to your code name at all, as usual ;)

- surely the flopti brain can understand that working in absolutes and predetermined assumptions creates pessimism…

Considering the approach of an actual ‘optimist’ might serve you better - otherwise it’s a straight up contradiction… kind of like pretending to call yourself a christian, and then exhibiting no true christian qualities…

- like expressing constant anger, spewing vitriolic and false judgements on muslims and ppl of different or no faith, being aggressive and condescending to differing points of view and generally espousing principles that are the opposite of love, empathy and forgiveness. ;)

@garyg1412 …

You might like this fella ;)

- arab robin williams giving sarcasm and dark humour a place at the table…

Bassem is onto it.

san Guine wrote:

goofyfoot wrote:

indo-dreaming wrote:

dandandan wrote:

indo-dreaming wrote:

Explosion hits hospital in Gaza.

Now lets be real.

Whats far more likely?

1. It was Israel that doesnt just fire rockets randomly and can pin point targets with jet fighters and have zero reason to hit a hospital, doing so only favours Hamas and muppets like Jelly who will go see who the bad guys are, the terrorist are the good guys.

.

If you are saying Israel doesn't just fire rockets randomly, are you accepting that so far Israel has pin pointed and killed more than 3000 people, at least 750 of them children, wounded 12 800, blown up a UN school that was being used as evacuation shelter? Is that the kind of pin point accuracy you are saying they have? Not to mention that they have cut off food, water, and power to a point that the UN today say they fear people are dehydrating to death. Is it really that impossible to imagine, after declaring they will wipe Palestinians off the map and reduce Gaza to rubble, that they would also fire rockets at a hospital?

Im guessing you missed the Sam Harris post from the other day that everybody should read and everyone needs to understand before even commenting in this thread, so this wont be the last time i repost it.

The reality is most countries keep all military seperate from civilians, but Hamas do the complete opposite they purposely put all bases in the same buildings a civilians live or work even school's, the purposely shot rockets from right next to house, schools etc so that Israel targets these locations, so yes even if at times they give warnings so civilians can evacuate yes sadly some get killed

BTW. The water has been put back on apparently, but have you even thought about how or why a country can cut off the others water or electricity?

Gaza attacks Israel all the time yet it still provides them water and energy in normal times, they could and have every right to just say you see us as your enemy we aren't providing you anything (If you dont know Hamas is actually the Gaza government as well as military ) the deal on water and energy was only suppose to temporary but here we are almost 20 years latter

Rabbits68 wrote:

Food for thought....

This is a transcript of a recorded podcast.

Sam Harris

The Sin of Moral Equivalence

I want to say a few things about recent events in Israel. I’m sure I will do future podcasts about this and speak with a wide range of relevant experts. But, for the moment, I would like to say something brief that stands a chance of being useful, as we watch the initial expressions of support for Israel begin to decay, as it wages war in Gaza and perhaps beyond.

As many of you know, I spent years talking about the clash, as I see it, between Western civilization and Islam. Specifically, I’ve spoken and written about the connection between the actual doctrines of Islam and jihadist violence. Of course, this violence has fallen out of the news in recent years, especially since the collapse of the Islamic State. Even I have stopped thinking much about it, but I’ve been under no illusion that the problem has gone away. Those of you who have been following my work for 20 years know that I’ve said everything I have to say on this topic, ad nauseam. And I’m sure I’ll periodically just repeat myself for the rest of my life—because eruptions of jihadist violence, and the attendant secular moral confusion about it, will be with us for generations.

However, I don’t want to rehash any of my criticism of Islam here. I’ll just briefly remind you of what I believe, which is that there is no possibility of living in peace with jihadists. So, whether we want to admit it or not, we are perpetually at war with them. And we must win a war of ideas with everyone, both within the Muslim world and outside it, who is confused about that—and there are legions of the confused. And there is no place on Earth where the truth about jihadism is more obvious or excruciating, and moral confusion about it more reprehensible, than Israel today.

But leaving all of that to one side, for the moment I’d like to make a very simple point, that really shouldn’t be at all controversial—because it doesn’t prejudge any of the questions that people might disagree about. You don’t have to agree with me about Islam, or about the role it plays in inspiring conflict. The point I’m making now says nothing about the causes of the recent violence in Israel—and yet it cuts through all the arguments and pseudo-arguments that attempt to paint some moral equivalence between Israel and its enemies, or to justify the actions of Hamas as though they were a response to Israeli provocations—to the growth of settlements, or the daily humiliation of living under occupation. Incidentally, there has been no occupation of Gaza since 2005, when Israel withdrew from the territory unilaterally, forcibly removing 9000 of its own citizens, and literally digging up Jewish graves. The Israelis have been out of Gaza for nearly 20 years. And yet they have been attacked from Gaza ever since.

But even a statement like that wades too far in controversy. I want you to step back… Whatever you think about the origins of this conflict, whatever you believe about the role that religion plays here (or doesn’t play), whatever you think about colonialism, or globalism, or any other ‘ism, whether you’re a fan of Noam Chomsky or Samuel Huntington, you should be able to acknowledge the following claims to be both descriptively true and ethically important.

At this moment in history, there are people and cultures that harbor very different attitudes about violence and the value of human life. There are people and cultures that rejoice, positively rejoice—dancing in the streets rejoicing—over the massacre of innocent civilians; conversely there are people and cultures that seek to avoid killing innocent civilians, and deeply regret it when they do—and they occasionally prosecute and imprison their own soldiers when they violate this modern norm of combat.

There are people and cultures who revel in the anguish of hostages and prisoners of war—who will parade them before cheering mobs, and often allow them to be assaulted, or raped, or even murdered. They will desecrate their bodies in public, and all of this carnage is a cause for jubilation. Conversely, there are people and cultures who find such barbarism revolting—and, again, would be inclined to prosecute anyone on their own side who took part in it.

In short, there are people and cultures who revel in war crimes—and who do not hide these crimes or their celebration of them but, rather, proudly broadcast their savagery for all the world to see. Conversely, there are people and cultures who have given us the concept of a war crime as a sacred prohibition—and as a safeguard in the ongoing project of maintaining the moral progress of civilization.

One point to concede, and this will absorb all the nuance and nonsense that is now percolating in the brains of many listeners: It is, of course, true that we in the West have been on the wrong side of these dichotomies in the past. Most Western armies, including Israel’s, have at one time or another been guilty of war crimes. And if you go back far enough, all of human conflict was just a litany of war crimes. And you don’t have to go back all that far, in fact, to find large pockets of Western culture that were morally indistinguishable from what we now see in much of the Muslim world. If you have any doubt about this, study the photos of white mobs celebrating the lynchings that occurred in the American South in the first half of the 20th century: where seemingly whole towns—thousands of men, women and children—turned out as though for a carnival to watch some young man or woman be tortured to death and then strung up on a tree or lamppost for all to see.

Seeing the pictures of these people in their Sunday best, having arranged themselves for a postcard photo under a dangling, and lacerated, and often partially cremated person, is one thing, but realize that these genteel people—who considered themselves good Christians—often took souvenirs of the body home to show their friends—teeth, ears, fingers, knee caps, internal organs—and sometimes displayed them in their places of business.

So I’m not claiming that there are permanent differences between groups of people. I’m talking about the power of ideas that happen to be ascendant at any given time and place. I’m talking about beliefs and whole worldviews that come into being in one culture and have yet to come into being in others. The point, of course, is that if we recognize the monstrosities of the past, we should recognize the monstrosities of the present, and acknowledge that at this moment in human history not every group has the same ethical norms governing its use of violence. For whatever reason. Perhaps religion has nothing to do with it.

Consider just one of these norms: Whenever an armed conflict breaks out, some groups will use human shields, and others will be deterred, to one degree or another, by their use. To be clear, I’m not talking about the taking of hostages from the opposing side for the purpose of using them as human shields. That is appalling, and it is now happening in Gaza, but it is separate crime. I’m talking about something far more inscrutable—it’s astounding, really, that it happens at all—I’m talking about people who will strategically put their own noncombatants, their own women and children, into the line of fire so that they can inflict further violence upon their enemies, knowing that their enemies have a more civilized moral code that will render them reluctant to shoot back, for fear of killing or maiming innocent noncombatants. If anywhere in this universe cynicism and nihilism can be found together in their most perfect forms, it is here.

Jihadists use their own people as human shields routinely. Hamas fires rockets from hospitals and mosques and schools and other sites calculated to create carnage if the Israelis return fire. There were cases in the war in Iraq where jihadists literally rested the barrels of their guns on the shoulders of children. They blew up crowds of their own children in order to kill US soldiers who were passing out candy to them. Conversely, the Israeli army routinely warns people to evacuate buildings before it bombs them.

Of course, during times of war, it common to dehumanize one’s enemy, to describe them as barbarous and evil. And it is natural for ethical and educated people to distrust such politically-charged language. But pay attention: I’m describing concrete behaviors—behaviors that occur on only one side of this conflict.

Just consider how absurd it would be to reverse the logic of human shields in this case: Imagine the Israelis using their own women and children as human shields against Hamas. Recognize how unthinkable this would be, not just for the Israelis to treat their own civilians in this way, but for them to expect that their enemies could be deterred by such a tactic, given who their enemies actually are.

Again, it is easy to lose sight of the moral distance here—which is strange. It’s like losing sight of the Grand Canyon when you are standing right on the edge of it. Take a moment to actually do the cognitive work: Imagine the Jews of Israel using their own women and children as human shields. And then imagine how Hamas, or Hezbollah, or al-Qaeda, or ISIS, or any other jihadist group would respond. The image you should now have in your mind is a masterpiece of moral surrealism. It is preposterous. It is a Monty Python sketch where all the Jews die.

Do you see what this asymmetry means? Can you see how deep it runs? Do you see what it tells you about the ethical difference between these two cultures?

There are not many bright lines that divide good and evil in our world, but this is one of them.

Of course, there is much more to talk about when considering the ethics of war and violence. And there’s much more to be confused about. For instance, as this war proceeds, many people will consider the deaths of noncombatants on the Palestinian side to be morally equivalent to the kids who were tortured and murdered at the peace concert by Hamas, or to the hostages who may yet be murdered and their murders broadcast on social media. But they’re not. There is a difference between collateral damage—which is, of course, a euphemism for innocent people killed in war—and the intentional massacre of civilians for the purpose of maximizing horror.

Simply the counting the number of dead bodies is not a way of judging the moral balance here. Intentions matter. It matters what kind of world people are attempting to build. If Israel wanted to perpetrate a genocide of the Palestinians, it could do that easily, tomorrow. But that isn’t what it wants. And the truth is the Jews of Israel would live in peace with their neighbors if their neighbors weren’t in thrall to genocidal fanatics.

In the West, we have advanced to a point where the killing of noncombatants, however unavoidable it becomes once wars start, is inadvertent and unwanted and regrettable and even scandalous. Yes, there are still war crimes. And I won’t be surprised if some Israelis commit war crimes in Gaza now. But, if they do, these will be exceptions that prove the rule—which is that Israel remains a lonely outpost of civilized ethics in the absolute moral wasteland that is the Middle East.

To deny that the government of Israel (with all of its flaws) is better than Hamas, to deny that Israeli culture (with all of its flaws) is better than Palestinian culture­ in its attitude toward violence, is to deny that moral progress itself is possible. If most Americans are better than their slaveholding ancestors, if most Germans today are better than the people who herded Jews into gas chambers, if the students protesting this war on your college campus—who are so conscientious that they lose sleep over crimes like “cultural appropriation” or using the wrong pronouns—if they are better than the racists and religious lunatics that inevitably lurk somewhere in their family trees—then we have to recognize that there is no moral equivalence now, between Israel and her enemies.

Dandandan how dare you question Indo!

Indo the arrogance in your replies is astounding.

The essayist states:

"Do you see what this asymmetry means? Can you see how deep it runs? Do you see what it tells you about the ethical difference between these two cultures?"

The article rightly points out this moral asymmetry. There can be no argument that the jihadists use of civilians as human shields is anything but abhorrent and reprehensible. Furthermore, Israel has an absolute right to the protect and guarantee the safety of its citizenry.

However, asymmetry is a double edged sword. This author absolutely fails to address the asymmetry of the military power differential, the asymmetry and control of economic opportunity, the asymmetry of oppression and subjugation of Palestinian people, the assymmetry of proportionality, the asymmetry of settlement encroachment. Notwithstanding, the lack of nationhood and identity for the Palestinian people, and their equal right to safety and security (from both within Palestine and from the Israeli state).

To lump an entire "people and culture" all together as being jihadists is dogmatic and simplistic and highlights the intractability of the conflict, with both sides poisoned by; millennia of mistrust and violence, capricious politicians, vested interests, interference from third parties (US, Iran, Russia et al.), religious fanaticism, polarisation of beliefs and a thirst for revenge.

Maybe if you want to talk about the West bank you can say that, but not the Gaza strip which this current issue is about, there has been no Israeli presence in the Gaza strip for almost 20 years, its a separate country and no its not a jail like many say, it also shares a border with Egypt one they also strictly control.

It actually ridiculous that despite the fact Hamas who is also the government openly say they want destroy Israel and kill all Jews and constantly fire rockets Into Israel in normal times, Israel still actually supplies energy and water and other goods and even allows thousands of Palestines from Gaza to work in Israel.

Its sure is a crazy world and getting crazier when people openly side with terrorist and jihadist, and while you cant paint every single Palestine person with the same brush there was plenty of footage of people celebrating the deaths and bodies paraded through public etc, pretty hard to deny what Sam says is not true.

andy-mac wrote:

stunet wrote:

Michael Adam wrote:

Is this the “The Current Thing” thread?

Yes but as per the title it's all the problem solving thread. I'm sure it'll all be over quick smart and we can go on to other things.

Ya reckon?

Im certain he was being sarcastic.

I don't know alot of the background of the whole situation over there.
All i know is it sucks seeing so much horror. It's hard to believe and hard to know how to just get on with daily life while events like these go on in other parts of the world. Pretty sure all would be feeling the same.
What i can share, is an observation from a friend in Tel Aviv, and her Insta stories. Her and her friends and family are pretty bummed that the west has initially blamed them for the hospital.
Also through messages, there's a huge feeling that the general vibe of the West is currently anti Israel.
She feels they are also innocent civilians caught up in this (well unless you count them as military agents due to their forced army conscription like Hamas do).
I've observed alot of insta stories about the hostages, the babies. I'm yet to see a post about the horror also being inflicted on Palestine. But i guess it is a war and they are at war with....well with who?
I've been in touch but haven't broached the subject re Gaza and the innocent civilians being slaughtered there as it's a pretty sensitive one and who am i to say what's right and wrong to her. She's living there through it all. I'm sure she knows alot more than i ever could. Just offering moral support for now.
I think i mentioned in another post, she told me years ago the younger generation can't stand Netanyahu and always tried to vote him out, but he's somehow always found a way to either stay in power or get back into power.
What Netanyahu is doing to Palestine to me seems just pure evil. I don't see how it could ever be justified...but then i'd imagine there's alot of things that seem unjustified while he's been there... since the early 80's when he's held positions of power in Israel security and as prime minister. It seems he's been there throughout a large portion of the hostilities.
Perhaps, that would be the first piece of the puzzle to remove?
As for Hamas. I don't know how you deal with them. But i can't see how what Israel are currently doing is going to create a better and safer world moving forward for anyone.
They've taken it way too far, beyond a fair retaliation and definitely not self defence.
Anyone want to take a punt as to where this is all heading??

indo-dreaming wrote:

andy-mac wrote:

stunet wrote:

Michael Adam wrote:

Is this the “The Current Thing” thread?

Yes but as per the title it's all the problem solving thread. I'm sure it'll all be over quick smart and we can go on to other things.

Ya reckon?

Im certain he was being sarcastic.

Yeah got that...

southernraw wrote:

I don't know alot of the background of the whole situation over there.

All i know is it sucks seeing so much horror. It's hard to believe and hard to know how to just get on with daily life while events like these go on in other parts of the world. Pretty sure all would be feeling the same.

What i can share, is an observation from a friend in Tel Aviv, and her Insta stories. Her and her friends and family are pretty bummed that the west has initially blamed them for the hospital.

Also through messages, there's a huge feeling that the general vibe of the West is currently anti Israel.

She feels they are also innocent civilians caught up in this (well unless you count them as military agents due to their forced army conscription like Hamas do).

I've observed alot of insta stories about the hostages, the babies. I'm yet to see a post about the horror also being inflicted on Palestine. But i guess it is a war and they are at war with....well with who?

I've been in touch but haven't broached the subject re Gaza and the innocent civilians being slaughtered there as it's a pretty sensitive one and who am i to say what's right and wrong to her. She's living there through it all. I'm sure she knows alot more than i ever could. Just offering moral support for now.

I think i mentioned in another post, she told me years ago the younger generation can't stand Netanyahu and always tried to vote him out, but he's somehow always found a way to either stay in power or get back into power.

What Netanyahu is doing to Palestine to me seems just pure evil. I don't see how it could ever be justified...but then i'd imagine there's alot of things that seem unjustified while he's been there... since the early 80's when he's held positions of power in Israel security and as prime minister. It seems he's been there throughout a large portion of the hostilities.

Perhaps, that would be the first piece of the puzzle to remove?

As for Hamas. I don't know how you deal with them. But i can't see how what Israel are currently doing is going to create a better and safer world moving forward for anyone.

They've taken it way too far, beyond a fair retaliation and definitely not self defence.

Anyone want to take a punt as to where this is all heading??

I'll take a punt and say a major war in the middle east

Yeah does feel that way @burleigh.
It's as flamable as i've observed it in my lifetime at the moment.
Scary shit.

Does either side have nuclear bombs?

I'd say Israel will continue to bomb Gaza and kill thousands more people - at least a third if not more will be children - and they will gradually push the remaining Palestinians in Gaza off their land and then they will take it. People will either be killed or forced out, and the prospect of returning to their own homes and their own land will be unimaginable. Israel will claim Gaza as theirs.

People will either let that happen (as they have done for decades) or there will be a much larger war involving a lot more players. Everyone knows that Israel has nuclear weapons, so I can't see it ending well for anyone.

Fark hey!! @dandandan.
And yep, agree with that.

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title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen></iframe>

"...What i can share, is an observation from a friend in Tel Aviv, and her Insta stories. Her and her friends and family are pretty bummed that the west has initially blamed them for the hospital.
Also through messages, there's a huge feeling that the general vibe of the West is currently anti Israel..."

and probably rightly so southernraw...

Long live Community Notes. Al-Jazeera, Bin Laden’s favourite channel was established to lie to you. https://t.co/MFBnFnvyvw

— Imam of Peace (@Imamofpeace) October 18, 2023

our own abc in on the act...

Will the ABC also be held to account under the the proposed new “Misinformation” Bill which will see everyone else’s right to freedom of speech trampled? https://t.co/mKdrwgE55n

— Melinda Richards 🇦🇺🇺🇸 (@goodfoodgal) October 18, 2023

unbelievably, the abc was still pesenting the hospital on today's morning news as a 'target'...

granted, not still blaming israel outright... but not even close to presenting it as a hamas rocket gone wrong... when all video evidence would suggest the latter...

The truth about the Gaza Hospital bombing: Hamas launched hundreds of rockets at Israel, and 1 landed on a hospital in Gaza. Watch the footage yourself, supplied by the Hamas-loving Al-Jazeera TV, and ask yourself how many missiles were probably stored in that hospital for the… pic.twitter.com/jBfddYALYH

— Imam of Peace (@Imamofpeace) October 17, 2023

I personally don't buy the israeli voice recording... yet...

but abc... unfuckingbelievable...

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/antisemitism-berlin-ger…

burleigh wrote:

southernraw wrote:

I don't know alot of the background of the whole situation over there.

All i know is it sucks seeing so much horror. It's hard to believe and hard to know how to just get on with daily life while events like these go on in other parts of the world. Pretty sure all would be feeling the same.

What i can share, is an observation from a friend in Tel Aviv, and her Insta stories. Her and her friends and family are pretty bummed that the west has initially blamed them for the hospital.

Also through messages, there's a huge feeling that the general vibe of the West is currently anti Israel.

She feels they are also innocent civilians caught up in this (well unless you count them as military agents due to their forced army conscription like Hamas do).

I've observed alot of insta stories about the hostages, the babies. I'm yet to see a post about the horror also being inflicted on Palestine. But i guess it is a war and they are at war with....well with who?

I've been in touch but haven't broached the subject re Gaza and the innocent civilians being slaughtered there as it's a pretty sensitive one and who am i to say what's right and wrong to her. She's living there through it all. I'm sure she knows alot more than i ever could. Just offering moral support for now.

I think i mentioned in another post, she told me years ago the younger generation can't stand Netanyahu and always tried to vote him out, but he's somehow always found a way to either stay in power or get back into power.

What Netanyahu is doing to Palestine to me seems just pure evil. I don't see how it could ever be justified...but then i'd imagine there's alot of things that seem unjustified while he's been there... since the early 80's when he's held positions of power in Israel security and as prime minister. It seems he's been there throughout a large portion of the hostilities.

Perhaps, that would be the first piece of the puzzle to remove?

As for Hamas. I don't know how you deal with them. But i can't see how what Israel are currently doing is going to create a better and safer world moving forward for anyone.

They've taken it way too far, beyond a fair retaliation and definitely not self defence.

Anyone want to take a punt as to where this is all heading??

I'll take a punt and say a major war in the middle east

Sadly, much bigger than this mate. We have Iran already saying that Israel as a state is finished while calling for mass Muslim protests around the world. Hezbolah is threatening the whole Europe. France had to close 6 airports the other day. Sporadic jihadist attacks are occurring around Europe. Schengen is finished, EU states are putting the borders back up. Attacks are imminent and I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s an attack in Australia.

In the background, China is saying that global changes are the biggest in the last few hundred years. Obviously, some are encouraged by this, pushing their own agenda. Europe is stuffed, they were in the middle of another huge migrant crisis before all this happened. Nobody knows how many potential jihadists entered its borders.

Personally, if I was in Israel I would fill my household with as much weapons as possible. If I was in Gaza I would do the same. When I was a kid in the war our house was full of weapons. It was the same with the neighbours and everyone else around. I remember AK47s, hand guns and hand grenades. The area I was in was ethnically mixed and any side could rebel against the other at any point in time. The fear of being attacked from ‘people down the road’ was real and everyone armed themselves for protection. It was an absolute mess and Israel/Palestine is 10X of this.

In summary, I don’t really care if Jews and Palestinians want to fight each to oblivion but keep it there. However, it looks like something that will spread around the globe and it’s got me quite concerned.

and, how the fuck is this man the leader of anything?

Update: I condemn #Israel for the explosion at a hospital in #Gaza.

I don't have the facts yet, and I can't confirm where the rocket came from, but I'm going to blame them because everyone else is.

My narcissism won't let me bite my tongue when the cameras are rolling. pic.twitter.com/MV8U0O5aLD

— Fake Mark Carney (@MarkCarney_Ego) October 17, 2023

what a simp

never used that term before... but seems very fitting...

and, speaking of how the fuck is this man the leader of anything?

don't worry... joe's on the case...

Why is this man not in a nursing home? pic.twitter.com/fSuo9E63B9

— Dr. Anastasia Maria Loupis (@DrLoupis) October 18, 2023

my gaaawwwd, the democrats have a lot to answer for...

'four more years!'

'four more years!'

'four more years!'

'tell him he's dreaming'

them / they

Ali Fadavi, the deputy commander-in-chief of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), has declared “the resistance will go on until the cancerous gland [Israel] is eradicated from the world map".https://t.co/G4XfS5iq5U pic.twitter.com/0KQLAtdGIu

— Iran International English (@IranIntl_En) October 17, 2023

If I was a Jew in Israel (and decided to stay there) I would arm myself to the teeth. If it’s hard legally I would get the guns in the black markets. And then I would help everyone around me to do the same. Wether it’s Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran or others (or all of these collectively) the fact remains, these guys will wipe Jews out if they let them.

.

Flollo, where was that? Your childhood? Shit mate!

sypkan wrote:

"...What i can share, is an observation from a friend in Tel Aviv, and her Insta stories. Her and her friends and family are pretty bummed that the west has initially blamed them for the hospital.

Also through messages, there's a huge feeling that the general vibe of the West is currently anti Israel..."

and probably rightly so southernraw...

https://twitter.com/Imamofpeace/status/1714615488829858084

our own abc in on the act...

https://twitter.com/goodfoodgal/status/1714768052729045124

unbelievably, the abc was still pesenting the hospital on today's morning news as a 'target'...

granted, not still blaming israel outright... but not even close to presenting it as a hamas rocket gone wrong... when all video evidence would suggest the latter...

https://twitter.com/Imamofpeace/status/1714386149337104854

I personally don't buy the israeli voice recording... yet...

but abc... unfuckingbelievable...

Its just irresponsible how some media have reported this event, labelling either side at fault with no evidence , i heard on ABC radio today a Gazza medic claiming it was Israel with no evidence and the interviewer didn't pull him up or make a mention latter that we dont know, people then go away thinking its fact with no evidence.

It seems the evidence with the live stream video is pointing to a misfired gazza rocket which is no surprise apparently its not unusual and a percentage don't even make it out of Gaza.

That said no matter the evidence people are going to beleve what they want.

You just did the same thing.
And you do.

someone...

anyone...

please please take the microphone away!

this man is dangerous

Sweet Jesus, why do they let him speak? https://t.co/oNJWAQt2SE

— Rita Panahi (@RitaPanahi) October 19, 2023

indo-dreaming wrote:

sypkan wrote:

"...What i can share, is an observation from a friend in Tel Aviv, and her Insta stories. Her and her friends and family are pretty bummed that the west has initially blamed them for the hospital.

Also through messages, there's a huge feeling that the general vibe of the West is currently anti Israel..."

and probably rightly so southernraw...

https://twitter.com/Imamofpeace/status/1714615488829858084

our own abc in on the act...

https://twitter.com/goodfoodgal/status/1714768052729045124

unbelievably, the abc was still pesenting the hospital on today's morning news as a 'target'...

granted, not still blaming israel outright... but not even close to presenting it as a hamas rocket gone wrong... when all video evidence would suggest the latter...

https://twitter.com/Imamofpeace/status/1714386149337104854

I personally don't buy the israeli voice recording... yet...

but abc... unfuckingbelievable...

Its just irresponsible how some media have reported this event, labelling either side at fault with no evidence , i heard on ABC radio today a Gazza medic claiming it was Israel with no evidence and the interviewer didn't pull him up or make a mention latter that we dont know, people then go away thinking its fact with no evidence.

It seems the evidence with the live stream video is pointing to a misfired gazza rocket which is no surprise apparently its not unusual and a percentage don't even make it out of Gaza.

That said no matter the evidence people are going to beleve what they want.

I heard that interview too

the whole thing is beyond irrespossible...

the whole world is reacting to hamas propaganda, ...reported in OUR media!

justification for whatever people are seeking, and real terrorist acts already, on a lie!

we are living the deep fake doomsday scenario many have been predicting...

and it didn't even require the deep fake vid!

just 'journalists' ignoring a real vid!

confirmation bias meets 'misinformation 101 on steroids...

seeds wrote:

You just did the same thing.

And you do.

Its hard not to form some type of a view on things as a human we naturally do it

But if you think i just watch a Sky news video or something them take a view you are wrong.

Im a bit OCD on these types of things once i latch onto something i dive right in, at work over the last week much of the day im listening to every and any podcast on it, right wing media, left wing media*, middle east experts, military experts, mainstream to nobodies, then weigh it all up.

And also use some common sense. like who is more likely to be spinning BS and what do they have to gain or lose?

We live in an age of misinformation that can now be used as a very powerful tool to manipulate people if this war goes on for some time as expected there will be all kinds of things like this, without going too conspiracy crazy, you also have to look at things from a sceptical angle, is this intentional to gain some advantage?

Its probably an accident, but things like this can still be used to gain support for Hamas in the west and put pressure on Israel to not go so hard.

You have to be realistic this is a war between Hamas and Israel but the west is also their enemy and we will be manipulated and played with information we now get online.

*Yeah i intentionally listen to left wing media to hear views that i might not like, i just want to know the other angle and sometimes it does feel like you get a missing piece of the puzzle.

seeds wrote:

Flollo, where was that? Your childhood? Shit mate!

I was kid in Yugoslav wars in the early 90s. There’s a long story about this war but in short, my ethnic comment comes from a fact that Croatian catholics, Serb orthodox and Bosnian muslims fought against each other (Croats and Bosnians fought together against Serbs for most of the time but there was also a period in which they fought against each other).

I come from a Croat family. The area I was in had majority of Croatian population with Serb minority. There were many regions with mixed populations. It was a tense situation as Serbs rebelled in the areas where they had the majority and declared a proto state. There was a fear of this happening in our area so people got armed. Things got crazy in 1991, especially during and after the battle for Vukovar:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Vukovar

The outcome of the battle is summarised well:

“Vukovar was defended by around 1,800 lightly armed soldiers of the Croatian National Guard (ZNG) and civilian volunteers, against as many as 36,000 JNA soldiers and Serb paramilitaries equipped with heavy armour and artillery. During the battle, shells and rockets were fired into the town at a rate of up to 12,000 a day.[4] At the time, it was the fiercest and most protracted battle seen in Europe since 1945, and Vukovar was the first major European town to be entirely destroyed since the Second World War.[5][6] When Vukovar fell on 18 November 1991, several hundred soldiers and civilians were massacred by Serb forces and at least 20,000 inhabitants were expelled.[7] Overall, around 3,000 people died during the battle. Most of Vukovar was ethnically cleansed of its non-Serb population and became part of the self-declared proto-state known as the Republic of Serbian Krajina. Several Serb military and political officials, including Milošević, were later indicted and in some cases jailed for war crimes committed during and after the battle.”

this whole gaza is running out of water thing is funny...

I saw a vid a few days ago, before the hospital debacle, showing many people in gaza have actually made their own independent water supplies. because hamas has already dug up many water pipes - provided as aid - so they can make rockets

rockets...

For those crying “Gaza has no water”, watch how Hamas digs out water pipes and repurposes an entire sewage system in Gaza to manufacture rockets.

They’re proud of keeping Palestinians thirsty. pic.twitter.com/gQOjkDcE3M

— Imam of Peace (@Imamofpeace) October 12, 2023

'insurrection' anyone?

(on a lie no less...)

https://twitter.com/greg_price11/status/1714715441057206289

https://twitter.com/libsoftiktok/status/1714718237118644259

@indo Both be spinning bullshit. I’m a splinter arse on this one and haven’t made any judgment on this. My judgment is on the behavior of modern Israel 1948 until this day. They have created this snowball. It won’t end. To think the horrors Jews faced in WW2 then only a few years later, decided by the west, they get given their nation. Problem is there’s a hell of a lot of other people that have also been there for millennia. Then while the west turns a blind eye they become just like their persecutors in the past. WW2 only ended 3 years earlier. As someone said pages ago “who became the Nazis?” Wonder what could go wrong? And 75 years later here we are.

Thanks flollo for your recollections. Crazy things for a kid to go through. Hope you’re good now.

Yeah incredible background story Flollo.
Thanks for posting that.

Re. Sam Harris
The Sin of Moral Equivalence

Indo Dreaming said:
'Maybe if you want to talk about the West bank you can say that, but not the Gaza strip which this current issue is about, there has been no Israeli presence in the Gaza strip for almost 20 years, its a separate country and no its not a jail like many say, it also shares a border with Egypt one they also strictly control.

It actually ridiculous that despite the fact Hamas who is also the government openly say they want destroy Israel and kill all Jews and constantly fire rockets Into Israel in normal times, Israel still actually supplies energy and water and other goods and even allows thousands of Palestines from Gaza to work in Israel.

Its sure is a crazy world and getting crazier when people openly side with terrorist and jihadist, and while you cant paint every single Palestine person with the same brush there was plenty of footage of people celebrating the deaths and bodies paraded through public etc, pretty hard to deny what Sam says is not true.'

Did you actually read the article? Harris stated:

"And you don’t have to go back all that far, in fact, to find large pockets of Western culture that were morally indistinguishable from what we now see in much of the Muslim world. If you have any doubt about this, study the photos of white mobs celebrating the lynchings that occurred in the American South in the first half of the 20th century: where seemingly whole towns—thousands of men, women and children—turned out as though for a carnival to watch some young man or woman be tortured to death and then strung up on a tree or lamppost for all to see."

The more extreme the situation the more humans behave in a similar fashion. For example, you and the cookers were praising the mobs marching in the streets of Melbourne chanting 'hell and damnation' for Dan Andrews over a mere couple of months of lockdowns.

Also for your edification, Gaza is not a country, so has none of the official/international/jurisdictional rights that are bestowed with nationhood.

Sorry but its crazy to ignore cultural differences between countries like Australia to middle east or in periods of time on how people view and accept different things, be it how we see or accept violence, rights of women, even how we treat animals, there is many different aspects that influence how we see things, but religion does have a big influence.

Denying these differences is like denying difference's in how even Australian's saw things differently all through history, for instance if you went back 100 years, how Australian society viewed all kinds of issues was completely different to how most of the community view things now, be it how we view and treat animals, see women rights, or gay people.

Just because we have extreme situations like a war doesn't mean we would go back to our views and society standards of 100 years ago, we wouldnt gp back to parading bodies through the streets pocking them with sticks or keeping body parts as souvenirs.

Anyway its pointless to argue over this Sam summed it up perfectly and very clearly if you dont understand it when put so well, i dont think you ever will or are just arguing for the sake of it.

Anyway im not interested in debating these kinds of aspects with people or debating the history and happy to accept we just hold different views.

Im more interested in the news and views or possibility of what will happen next etc

Jelly Flater wrote:

Not living up to your code name at all, as usual ;)

- surely the flopti brain can understand that working in absolutes and predetermined assumptions creates pessimism…

Considering the approach of an actual ‘optimist’ might serve you better - otherwise it’s a straight up contradiction… kind of like pretending to call yourself a christian, and then exhibiting no true christian qualities…

- like expressing constant anger, spewing vitriolic and false judgements on muslims and ppl of different or no faith, being aggressive and condescending to differing points of view and generally espousing principles that are the opposite of love, empathy and forgiveness. ;)

@garyg1412 …

You might like this fella ;)

- arab robin williams giving sarcasm and dark humour a place at the table…

Saw this a few nights back. A bit of dark humour is better than the plain dark stuff at the moment. Narcissistic Psychopath comment was absolute gold!!!

Very powerful words by Ursula von der Leyen:

From Russia’s war on Ukraine to Hamas’ terrorist attacks on Israel.

These crises, however different, call on Europe and America to take a stand – and stand together.

We must support these democracies ↓ https://t.co/frAVMfc1pz

— Ursula von der Leyen (@vonderleyen) October 19, 2023

^^ about half of that is really good, gsco, but I just ran her Hudson speech through Turnitin, and that same proportion largely represents others' work, not-cited ; )

;)

https://english.almayadeen.net/articles/analysis/hasbara:-israels-propa…

I found a comment on the worldnews thread that has made much of what I'm seeing currently very clear:

"PadmeSkywalker
•
5 hr. ago
Gen Z has been raised on a diet of intersectional politics. I’m going to paste one of my previous comments below to explain why they side with Palestine:

To everyone saying that this isn’t a left/right issue, the left views everything through a lens of race/power dynamics. There is always someone who is oppressed and someone who is an oppressor. By default white people are always the oppressors. Hence, the white Israelis are the oppressors of the POC Palestinians. The oppressed do not have agency, since they are oppressed, and thus have no responsibility for their actions. What they say can never be questioned because it is their lived experience and cannot be subject to objective reality. The oppressor is always responsible for all of the actions of the oppressed group, because they are the only ones with the power. Any actions taken by the oppressed, including violence are morally correct as these are the only tools they have to try to overcome their oppression. Any bad choices they take are the responsibility of the oppressors because only they shape society, and society has shaped the oppressed to not be able to take good actions.

Viewed through this, a lot of viewpoints on the left make sense. This includes why you will have people who declare themselves to be staunch feminists, Trans rights activists and other left wing groups staunchly being anti-Israel. Because to them Israel will always be the oppressor and any actions they take will be wrong. It’s why there is the cognitive dissonance of not being able to admit or to downplay things that Hamas does like their actions on 10/7 or even the hospital bombing. It would clash with their ideology so they ignore is or bend themselves into pretzels to justify it.

The race/oppression lens is also why left wing jurisdictions take certain decisions. Why reduce sentences for crimes, even though it makes crimes worse? If a corporation leaves an area because of the crime rates, why blame the corporation? Etc… it bleeds into everything in society."

found here:

https://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/17bon5j/rworldnews_live_thr…

The very problem with this world view is in the definitions. If you fuck up identifying who is the oppressor and who is the oppressed; or fuck up that anyone is actually oppressed or oppressor in the first place - you are misdiagnosing individuals up to entire societies. For example, how can a homeless white person in Philadelphia be oppressing anyone? They are people the society has abandoned. If you misdiagnose, you create conflict where there should be none, and better effort would be spent raising everyone up. The lived experience/never questioned bit feeds into the school example I raised where students were encouraged to examine text on how it made them feel, not critical analysis. This method is erroneous as it excuses any emotional response, without pause or consideration of the wider human experience in what they are looking at. The group defined with power having responsibility for all of the actions of the group defined without is a denial of free agency, and creates problems because people do tend to act in their own best interests. Overall it's a great ideology to tear things down. A more brutal world arises in it's aftermath.

Jelly Flater wrote:

;)

https://english.almayadeen.net/articles/analysis/hasbara:-israels-propa…

What an irony, almayadeen writing about Jewish hasbara propaganda. What about an article about almayadeen propaganda?