Since it's been a while since we had an Israel/Palestine thread...

padraig (u.s.)

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
version said:
A third had "traitor" and "imbecile" shouted at her as she came to comfort families evacuated during the horror.
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Can't remember if I already mentioned this or not but I'm pretty sure that's referring to Idit Silman, whose defection from Bennett's coalition to Likud directly triggered Netanyahu's return to power last year

And not exactly news that Bibi is responsibilty-averse megalomaniac ofc, but a post-Trump world has really reinforced all his worst tendencies.
 
padraig (u.s.)

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
shakahislop said:
my guess would be that israel and the US are putting a lot of resources into influencing the online space. i don't think that's too paranoid a way of thinking about it.
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Of course they are. That's not different from any other war tho. Remember when one of the most surprising things about Ukraine was how badly they were crushing Russia in the information war (in the Anglosphere anyway)?

And my experience of saturation has been the opposite. It's how wild many people I talk to at work/gym etc don't even know anything is happening.
 
padraig (u.s.)

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
And here's a debunk of the OSINT debunk



I'm not remotely qualified to evaluate that stuff and I strongly doubt anyone else here is either
 
Mr. Tea

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
maxi said:
When grilled on it by the international community they'll have their excuses, but at the same time Israel have been pretty brazen in their statements lately. I don't think they give a fuck what people think much anymore. There was one government or military figure the other day (can't remember who now) who openly said Palestinian civilians are legitimate targets because they voted for Hamas. The defence minister issued a statement saying they are fighting "human animals". You don't get that kind of thing from other western powers
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I wonder whether it hasn't occurred to them, or they simply don't care, that the reverse argument can also be applied: Israel - "the only democracy in the Middle East", allegedly - keeps electing these awful, right-wing, ultra-Zionist governments. And while there are liberal and left-wing Israelis who vote for liberal and left-wing parties, there are also Palestinians who hate Hamas.
 
padraig (u.s.)

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
Without minimizing it, the hospital also doesn't change the fundamental situation. Total siege, thousands of dead, mass destruction, etc in return for so far, a couple of relatively high-level Hamas figures (and an unknown number of rank and file).
 
mixed_biscuits

mixed_biscuits

_________________________
Mr. Tea said:
I wonder whether it hasn't occurred to them, or they simply don't care, that the reverse argument can also be applied: Israel - "the only democracy in the Middle East", allegedly - keeps electing these awful, right-wing, ultra-Zionist governments. And while there are liberal and left-wing Israelis who vote for liberal and left-wing parties, there are also Palestinians who hate Hamas.
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Tell us about Palestine's LGBTQI+ and other progressive policies compared to those of the awful Israeli gvt
 
vimothy

vimothy

yurp
I'm reminded of the joke about how "academic politics are so vicious precisely because the stakes are so low". all of the controversy online in recent days has been about some detail which ultimately changes nothing about the wider picture. did hamas behead babies, or just shoot them. did Israel bomb one hospital in particular, or just flatten the gaza strip as a whole. but for these cases, although the big picture is unchanged, the details completely matter from a PR / propaganda POV, in terms of motivating a response via social media. and if we're going into the conflagration, sods law dictates that it's going to be on one of these points of academic detail which probably shouldn't matter but nevertheless do.
 
mixed_biscuits

mixed_biscuits

_________________________
Mr. Tea said:
It's the sound of exasperation at disingenuous concern-trolling.
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I don't understand how Israel gets no credit from Western 'progressives' for being about a zillion times more 'progressive' than its neighbours - it's very much an unprincipled exception on the Western progressives' side.
 
mixed_biscuits

mixed_biscuits

_________________________
vimothy said:
I'm reminded of the joke about how "academic politics are so vicious precisely because the stakes are so low". all of the controversy online in recent days has been about some detail which ultimately changes nothing about the wider picture. did hamas behead babies, or just shoot them. did Israel bomb one hospital in particular, or just flatten the gaza strip as a whole. but for these cases, although the big picture is unchanged, the details completely matter from a PR / propaganda POV, in terms of motivating a response via social media. and if we're going into the conflagration, sods law dictates that it's going to be on one of these points of academic detail which probably shouldn't matter but nevertheless do.
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Since straight-up anti-Semitic ejaculations are proscribed people are left to insinuate these sentiments in ways that might be misinterpreted as being reasonable... hence Biden's firm tone-policing statement that attempted to nip this in the bud
 
mixed_biscuits

mixed_biscuits

_________________________
Western leaders have attempted to map the situation to the simple and not necessarily incorrect goodie/baddie Ukraine/Russia template but it hasn't got the buy-in - too many people agreeing with Russia and China's take this time round! Maybe this contrariness will lead people to reassess their Ukraine/Russia interpretation.
 
padraig (u.s.)

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
mixed_biscuits said:
I don't understand how Israel gets no credit from Western 'progressives' for being about a zillion times more 'progressive' than its neighbours - it's very much an unprincipled exception on the Western progressives' side.
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Israeli progressiveness stops at the borders of Gaza/WB. Even if you totally ignore the conditions Israel imposes on Gaza and blame it all on Hamas, Palestinians in most of the WB don't even have basic civil rights. It's like saying South Africa was so much better than its neighbors except for the Bantustans.

And Assad, Al-Sisi, SA, Iran, etc regimes all being terrible doesn't give a Israel a free pass. Undoubtedly it's an infinitely better place for queer people. That doesn't justify flattening Gaza or settlers annexing land and shooting people in the WB. It's a classic Israel apologia line "yes we do some bad stuff but the other side is worse so why are you criticizing us". If you say you're better you're going to have to live up to a higher standard to justify that.
 
padraig (u.s.)

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
Everywhere I look we're redoing all the same arguments from 2002

This one is the "we're better than them so we can do bad stuff and not live up to our own supposed standards in order to win and it's justified bc we're better than them" tautology. Whence the CIA torture program etc.
 
vimothy

vimothy

yurp
as with Russia-Ukraine the imperative should be to de-escalate, if poss. we dont want to walk into the gates of hell.
 
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