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Be polite and considerate when commenting on the Israel vs. Hamas conflict please and thank you!
Thanks for writing. I am politely and considerately wishing Israel a swift (and lasting) victory in this terrible war and hopefully as few innocent people die as possible.
While I do feel bad for the individual Israelis killed or taken captive by the Islamists, my sympathies for Israeli people and state as a whole is zero given the pivotal role they played in the death and expulsion of thousands of Christian Armenians in Artsakh over the last three years. In my eyes, Turks, Azeris, Hamas, are all the same. You ally with one and get bitten by another. Tough luck.
It's a tough neighborhood and Israel doesn't have the luxury of choosing its friends. The Azeris have oil and are willing to sell it to the Israelis. A strong Azerbaijan also threatens Iran, which has a 25% Azerí minority concentrated in its northwest.
Likewise, Israel can't strongly oppose Russia in Ukraine because Russia controls Syrian airspace, and the IAF needs access to run sorties to target Hezbollah/Iranian positions in Syria. Geopolitics 🤷
And I speak as someone who used to believe in Christian Zionism, that all Christians had some kind of Biblical obligation to support the State of Israel. I cringe looking back at those days. The 2020 Artsakh War really opened my eyes so as to speak, and then further research solidified it. I understand why Jews support Israel. But if you are a Christian(particularly American Evangelical) who thinks you are obliged to support Israel because of your faith, then you are just an idiot at best and a traitor to your fellow Christians at worst(see the Armenians).
My man, also see how USA funded Al-Qaeda which became ISIS. They killed so many Christians. Russia, Assad, and Iran were the main forces against ISIS. Still USA supports islamists in Idlib
Thank God, Assad is winning in Syria or else Christianity would have been extinguished from one of its historic homelands. And US invasion of Iraq is directly responsible for the death and exodus of millions of Christians from there. Part and parcel for Western Christendom of course.
While you can't deny the incredible generosity of many regular Catholics and Protestants towards Eastern Christians in terms of education, healthcare, and financial support, the political leadership in the West consistently makes choices that makes life a living hell on Earth for Eastern Christians. From American support for Islamists under not only Democrats but from also self proclaimed Christian Republicans, to Britain consistently screwing over Russia retaking Constantinople throughout the 19th century to the Fourth Crusade.
Britain was in the business of empire, not saving souls. Losing Turkey as an ally in the lead up to WW1 fatally weakened the UK in the long run but keeping rivals like Russia as far as possible from the oil-fields of Mesopotamia and the adjacent regions of Iran was first-class geopolitical calculation.
I appreciate your sympathies and feelings but very few Eastern Christians have ever supported the West. Ever. Quite the contrary.
In the 20th c. Middle Eastern Christians typically supported Arab nationalism, often in its most extreme forms (the Ba'ath and the SSNP, both of which derived their thinking from pre-war German and Italian forms of fascism). If you can identify how the West might conceivably benefit from supporting this sort of thing please explain yourself. The West (above all the UK) typically supported moderate Arab monarchies that were (and mostly still are) more tolerant and less toxic than the alternatives on offer elsewhere in the Arab world. For very sound geopolitical reasons the West also backed Kemalist Turkey.
Gov'ts need a reason to back anyone. Religious solidarity is not to be despised but this sort of thinking was rejected in Europe from the time of Richelieu. Cheap jibes about American Evangelicals are beside the point and neither the State Dep't nor the Foreign and Colonial Office have ever been in the least bit receptive to Christian Zionism.
Let me put it this way. Western interests in the region based on some balance of power geopolitical notion is irrelevant to me. I do not stay awake at night worrying about how to keep the Russians out of the Mediterranean like Disraeli did. My views on foreign policy are purely ideological. I am not alone in this. Countries all over the world from the Wahabbist Saudis to Commie Russians have had their foreign policy based on their ideology, if not completely, then at least partially mixed with pragmatism.
I have read your comments on this substack for the last year or so, and I agree with quite a lot of them. And if I understand you correctly, your past comments on this site indicates to me that you think the US also operates at least partially this way, not out of pure realist geopolitical strategy, but with a healthy dose of the "GAE" ideology.
I do not claim to be a pure rational actor concerned only with realpolitik. I am an ideological person, and I support who I support based on my ideology. I support a Baathist Syria under Russian influence that allows Christians to exist over a "moderate" Islamist Syria that my country(US) for geopolitical reasons(screwing over the Russians) supports.
If my comments about Evangelicals irks you, forgive me. I do not expect any other faction in US politics to remotely care about Middle Eastern Christians. But Christian conservatives in the US still have some political power, and Congress can and does influence foreign policy to some extent. My wish is that they would direct that political capital towards their co-religionists over Jewish Israel. Perhaps a wishful thinking but it is what it is.
America confuses/frustrates me. Figuring out its foreign policy is sudoku and I have never been sure that I have gotten it remotely right.
Re the Near East the ethno-sectarian feuding is a characteristic feature of the region, as are the constant efforts to draw in outside powers. I sincerely wish the Christians and Alawites of Syria well...ditto the Sunni Arabs and Druze too. IMHO the very best thing that they could do is avoid being dragged into a war for the sake of Resistance Incorporated (the Palestinians).
The question of Christianity in Asia is a compelling one but I do not think that the US has many easy/good options. During the early 20th c. the US actively supported Christianity in the Far East. The old pre-war China Lobby was composed of the Churches (keen on missionary work), arms manufacturers and key business groups. The China Lobby played a major role in supporting FDR's foreign policy. During the Cold War the US also relied on Christian communities in S. East Asia.
There is a compelling case for the US supporting Christian communities across Asia but the modalities are difficult to work out. And the urgency of all this pales before the great question of Christianity in Africa...where there are potential civil wars between Christians and Muslims all over the place.
I'd be very interested in practical ideas about all this.
I fully appreciate that they hardly had a choice at all but it is worth noting that the Ba'athist enthusiastically welcomed jihadists from across the world in order to discomfit the American military in Iraq. Syria declined to learn the great lesson of the Lebanese: allow third parties to wage war from your territory and exult in talk about 'resistance' and you may well regret it. And the jihadists are not more cruel than the people who work as torturers for Assad.
Well I'm not going to quibble about torturers. Except I don't think the torturers glory in making slaves of minority women nor in the general murder and mayhem and terror without a specific purpose -- and even if Assad is a dictator, this is not what he celebrates openly. I mean it is not really the "same." However, point taken.
I just want to say that in 2016 I knew nothing about General Michael Flynn (this was before the push to remove him). So I read his book, "Field of Fight" because I was quite interested in what we (the US) were doing in the ME. Flynn was a lifelong Democrat and he was Obama's head of the Defense Intelligence Agency. What Flynn wrote, IIRC, was that he went and interviewed prisoners at AbuGhraib. Apparently the staunch secularist followers of Hussein became completely hardboiled Islamist jihadists through the invasion of Iraq. These were men who had been military officers under Hussein when he had been an ally (once upon a time) of the US. I think it's important to remember that Iraq was a place, regardless of the "strongman" rule of Hussein, that had extensive modern infrastructure, a professional class, an actual parliament, such as it was, that included women representatives (again including female professionals such as doctors). Now the "shock and awe" policy decimated everything. And moreover, I don't need to say that the completely manufactured excuse for that war were deliberate lies about WMD. I remember once upon a time watching a Fox News chat show in the early 2000s when this was being debated. One of our US weapons inspectors was on, and she said, "We know they don't have any WMDs." The host asked, "How do you know?" She said, "Because we sold them to him and we know what's been destroyed." Okay, just start there and imagine yourself in Hussein's military after what was to follow.
Now Flynn's whole thesis as an Intel expert was that it was the war in Iraq that created ISIS. Whatever we want to agree with or disagree with, I don't think that's nonsense.
The war in Iraq was all but inevitable. Conflict with the Iraqi Ba'athist was confidently predicted by an oil industry insider with Gulf experience back in the early 80s if I remember correctly. It was a good call.
Saddam needed conflict. He actively sought it out. If the Ba'ath were a half-way credible political party they would have killed Saddam themselves. They didn't or couldn't and he brought the whole state down. Iraq was (and still is) an artificial state created by the British. And for the record Saddam was not Washington's man. Never. He was wooed by the Beltway but he was always an ally of the USSR.
I am not saying that America has not made grievous mistakes but I think that the cottage industry of blame in the US over Iraq is just ridiculous.
If you ask me, they did not understand the neoOttoman mentality which understands only aggression. A friendly act means you have enabled whatever aggression they would like to undertake against you. How many times has Erdogan NATO member, stabbed the US in the back? Too many times to count. Until we understand the value and even excitement that aggression and grim ruthlessness has within the dream of neoOttoman caliphate we will never understand what we are dealing with.
They are bombing today. Sen Hollenbeck wrote a diatribe about it. Nadine Maenza was the form head of US Center for International Religious Freedom. You should see what she writes today. It is heartbreaking what is happenng. Our current heads of agencies for religious freedom under State and also the Independent bipartisan US CIRF say nothing and do nothing. They are acting as if they're blind
yep, it is all on purpose. It is not about regime change, but keeping Syria eternally as a failed state. How else can one explain them supporting different factions which were fighting each other? This way Syria can never threaten Israel they think. Why is the US fighting another country's wars contrary to their own interests as a people?
Agreed. My views of Israel are neutral. I gain no pleasure in their victories or in their injuries. They are not my people. At the end of the day, I want the relationship between US and Israel to be like between say Japan and Israel. Distant and neutral, but sending brief condolences, not whole carrier strike groups, when something bad happens in either country.
Not trolling, I swear, I'm just not sure I understand this clearly:
"unless the Israelis decide to forcibly expel two million Palestinians from Gaza (and annihilate the moral argument for the establishment of the State of Israel)"
Does this mean that the moral argument for Israel rests on the Nazis and thus the Israelis must never do anything that resembles something the Nazis did? (Or that some shrieker on cable news could compare to the Nazis?) Do all roads still lead to Hitler?
I think there could be a very strong "moral argument" made for the establishment of Israel even if WW2 never happened, but I might just be feeling philo-Semitic this morning.
The Holocaust gave birth to the State of Israel. If Israel were to expel two million Palestinians from Gaza, it would definitely undermine its raison d'etre in the eyes of the world, with even the USA having a tough time continuing to defend it. This is not the Cold War era.
But then again, look at Nagorno-Karabakh. Maybe I'm wrong.
What happened in Nagorno-Karabakh proves it isn't difficult to forcibly remove a large population of people in a short amount of time in the 21st century. I think we're going to see more of these types of things around the world, I don't think it would happen in Gaza though I wouldn't be surprised
Unlike Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh who are welcomed in Armenia, I strongly doubt that the Palestinians would be welcome to re-settle in neighbouring Egypt (at least its ruling authorities certainly would frown upon it).
One fact that isn't talked about that much is how much other Arab countries don't want Palestinians. Maybe it's just diaspora but Jordanians and Iraqis I've met hate Palestinians and think that they're forced to engage in conflict on their behalf. And then there's Lebanese folks I've met who are Anti-Zionist only because they want to kick Palestinians out of Lebanon.
Historically hosting large Palestinian militants has been a recipe for disaster for the host country...see Black Friday in Jordan and the Lebanese civil war.
They are not willing to self govern and nobody wants them in their country. So what's the solution- from Israeli perspective? From Arab perspective? From "great powers" perspective?
True, however it has always taken a long time, tons of causalities, and like you mentioned ugly. All of those elements were missing from the recent Armenian exodus. If this was done in the 20th century it would have a bloodbath
thx got it...i doubt the plan is a full expulsion anyway, mostly bc no one wants the Gazans.
my politics are mostly literary anyway, i think the Jews should get all the land from the Jordan to the sea just bc the Koran is such a cheap knockoff of the Old Testament ;)
The Jews gave them their god and religion, they can at least break em off a hunk of land...
Nicolo: Israel was established by dint of work and arms over decades from the 1880s to the 1940s. The actual Moral Argument you may refer to is.... The Balfour Declaration in 1917 ? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balfour_Declaration
Israel is a creation above all of the Jewish Colonists and after that the Crown.
Israel was nearly already established by the time WW2 started.
The Jews and the Arabs were at war from the 1930s, The British being on both sides...as America is on both sides now...
The Holocaust simply made the matter easier for the Americans in their creation the United Nations. At the time it was more than awkward even for the Americans to have a Jewish State, also at the time America wasn't an Israeli ally but an observer on the ground, not always a sympathetic one. America and Israel aren't allies until after the 1967 war.
That Israel came up from the ground 1945-1947 and is a creation of the UN is a nice story, it lacks the merit of being true. However, the UN resolution canard DOES provide a Moral Argument for the establishment of a Palestinian State. As it happens that's tried ...and failed. Palestinians don't want a state, they want to destroy Israel.
The previous attempts under first the PLO now called PA and now HAMAS in Gaza since 2006 have made this clear.
I recall reading a great book on Jews who immigrated to Ottoman Empire Palestine a the end of the 19th century and beginning of 20th who were basically laying the foundation for a future Jewish state. One man loomed large in the book. He surveying the land, learning about its topography and native plants to make the dessert bloom. His name was Aaron Aaronsohn. Jewish groups pressured the Ottomans into letting them migrate to Palestine and the Arabs living there were livid as they knew what increased Jewish migration meant. I wish I remembered the name of the book. It supported what you said above.
I condemn the horrific acts we are seeing unfold today in Israel against children, women, the elderly, and the unarmed people who are being slaughtered and taken hostage by Hamas. Such senseless violence will only repeat the back and forth cycle we've seen, which we cannot allow…"?
When we burned on 9/11 , the Palestinians applauded.
Including the ones in America in Paterson, NJ [the ADL was lying about 'soccer game', a ridiculous lie at that].
But in any case we've been holding the Israelis back. We were tougher on Serbia and certainly poor Iraq , or Vietnam, or the Germans than we let the Israelis be on the Palestinians. Now Gaza has made its choice, the choice was HAMAS.
The Palestinians are simply a death cult, they don't want a state, they want to destroy Israel. Which wouldn't be our problem had we not gotten involved or ended the alliance with the Cold War as we should have, but we meddled.
Now we must allow our ally to exist, and now the stakes are existential for Israel.
Worse: it is not a destruction of Gaza America should now fear, not that Israel will go too far. Our actual problem is Israel is now revealed to be extraordinarily weak in will for all it's power and it's existence could unravel - sucking us in. The alliance went on too long and NOW we're in the position of Imperial Germany watching Austro-Hungary unravel in the Balkans ....or perchance a war we America stumble into unprepared in any way.
Excellent take. The US needed to rationalise its obligations after the Cold War...instead the Beltway used foreign and defense policy as an excuse to build up frequent flyer points and reshape the world. It was insane to punish the Israelis for complying with George Bush's pleas to stay out of GW1 by forcing Arafat on them via Oslo. It was insane to reward Arafat for backing Saddam Hussein.
Now the petrodollar is crumbling but Washington is left with a foreign policy designed for a world that does not exist.
FF/ 1] yes they are a death cult, and a 'people' who are a PRISON GANG.
This is just a prison gang that arose in the camps.
They have ONE goal and demand - destroy Israel.
No other interests.
2] the term Palestinian did not exist until 1960s, and certainly not in 1947.
3] Do you deny and obfuscate further that their implacable demand is the destruction of Israel?
4] Just for laughs I'm not Jewish, at all.
I begin to suspect ....LOL.
5] Pals lost me when they cheered at 9/11. Yes, in America too.
6] If you missed this weekend, they showed who they were...yet again !
7] We've been an ally of Israel since 1967. Regardless of paperwork.
Indeed, the less paper the more real.
8] which is the least we could do - given that we the USA, via the UN [utterly our phony front company] have been funding the entire Palestinian 'nation' since the 1940s.
9] If you are eager to have the US betray Israel, relax...we are...
10] And yes, they're a prison gang death cult, similar to war bands such as the Pechenegs of the past. Most such people's have already disappeared, they can join them.
11] GAZA has made it's choice, and it's Choice was HAMAS - and Death.
12] Learn to respect other's choices, in this case death.
Lol, without bothering to unpacknyour gish gallop in detail, since you say so, it must be a death cult. And of course, Israelis who cheered at 9/11 are excused.
One question, why does this attack stop a Saudi and Israeli peace deal I don't see the relation that much? Is it because of Arab/Muslim solidarity or something
Also in regards to the effects of this war, it's definitely going to be costly if Hezbollah and the West Bank rise up( not even including every other armed group in the ME with gripes with Israel. I mean the potential casualties of just going to into Gaza is going to make every other war Israel fought pale in comparison. Israel will probably win in this conflict however it will be extremely destructive and not just another Intifada or 2006 War repeat. All and all just terrible
Saudi Arabia is the "land of the two holy sites" (Mecca and Medina) and therefore has a responsibility regarding the Islamic World. This puts them in a bind as they have to outwardly side with the Palestinians or face discontent at home.
Oh right, yeah I was just wondering how the attack was related to Saudi's foreign policy considering recently they have been more pragmatic. They pretty much ignored China's treatment of the Ugyhurs and I think their relationships with Pakistan have soured. I assumed that they would have carried that some of pragmatism toward Hamas. But then again the Palestinian Issue is way more significant and longstanding than Ugyhurs and Pakistan
Really can’t emphasize enough that in the Gulf *nothing* has changed regarding sympathy for the Palestinian cause. In countries that have “normalized” relations there is massive surveillance and censorship around the issue but the people are all still hugely pro-Palestine. In such a large country as Saudi it would be very hard to control public sentiment in the same way it’s controlled in the UAE (for example). And all of them have grown up - for 50 years - watching scenes of extreme violence coming out of Palestine. There is no censorship of the videos and images here until recently.
The Gulf is in a very tricky situation. The ruling families are pragmatic and sane. They would remember the treachery of the Palestinians towards their Kuwaiti benefactors during Gulf War 1 but need to be mindful of regional factors (Iran). Also the Gulf was bullied into accepting Muslim Brotherhood refugees from Egypt who fled Nasser. Many got jobs as policemen or as teachers.
The same people seething at Ukraine aid are all in favor of Israel genociding the Palestinians as vengeance and unlimited aid and support.
The amount of compassion and empathy towards Israel is just nauseating, a country that's unwilling to abide by international law and is essentially a rogue state.
If Palestinians attack the people that are colonizing parts of the country that should be theirs according to international law, it's terrorism.
What are Palestinians supposed to do? Lie down and die? Disappear so Israel is feeling safe?
You see a filthy chimp dragging a white woman with bloodied hands and face by the hair and you have a hard time picking a side. Well karma's a bitch and it will come for you.
Oct 8, 2023·edited Oct 8, 2023Liked by Niccolo Soldo
There are some people from Nagorno-Karabakh who have at least a 3000 year history and have experienced the same by people using Israeli weapons. Let's talk about karma when Erdogan, Hamas supporter, is armed for a new Armenian Genocide/Ethnic Cleansing, and denies the first which inspired Hitler!
There is no doubt in my mind about the hideousness of the jihadist militants and what they do. And my sympathy is 200% with those victims.
But many of us have seen this for decades already. Karma is complicated when it was Israel that was arming such people recently
I left a comment already saying that Israel's support of Azerbaijan is a terrible crime, one amongst many, but the host deleted it. Not sure why, but the word 'orc' sets him off I think.
I support a Jewish ethnostate in Israel too. But we're a minority in our groups. Most Jewish people are too afraid of Europeans to ever accept that demand. They have historical reasons which I acknowledge. And most right wing Europeans would rather see Israel destroyed, cause they are lacking consistency.
I can't really agree with the expectation that Palestinians just give up, for the same reason that I cannot agree Ukrainians give up. You'll have to fully break them, which you just might, and it will have consequences, and justify a return to a previous state of the planet where empires took what they wanted by force.
1) This is a cringe Hasbara meme that is arrived at by declaring anyone with => 25% 'Sephardi' ancestry to be 'Sephardi' (see (2) for explanation of scare quotes). If demographic trends continue, it will be the case, at which point the wheels will fall off and Israel will look like Mexico. But, right, now it's not true.
2) Technically, almost no-one in Israel is Sephardi, since this term properly refers to the (white!) descendants of the Spanish diaspora, who mostly died in the Holocaust (principally Salonika - the head of Pfizer is a rare descendant). The Israeli neologism 'Mizrahi' is a bit cringe, but it effectively disambiguates the group you are talking about.
3) The fact is that economic, social and political power is in the hands of Ashkenazim. Every country forms a natural racial hierarchy and, in Israel, it's Ashkenazim at the top (and Christian Arabs, if they want it). You can try and cover this up without mountains of nonsense about feminism and LGBTQ as the 'Left' does, or flail pointlessly against it, like the 'Right', but it is what it is. The natural place of Gazans in this pyramid is right at the bottom, and they should be grateful for that because it's a lot better than they could do on their own. But it's moot because they chose to make [redacted] warfare and, as result, they must [redacted for the scruples of the host].
The Palestinians certainly do have a right to rebel. With respect to Israel, they are under the protection of the USA, so much so that they no longer have to act rationally, as they can get away with quite a bit in terms of international law due to said US protection.
I think I'm gonna make a list of all the Matt Gaetz and RonDesantis types, also all sorts of Elon-related "right-wing" celebrities that have for months demanded all aid to Ukraine stops so Russia can take what it wants, only to suddenly come out with "Israel is our greatest ally and will forever have our support".
"Biden funded this" and "if Trump was still in office" hottakes are just as worthy, especially when Trump is in his copecage website crying crocodile tears about Israel too.
Some of those stop aid to Ukraine supports believe it will only prolong the conflict, resulting in more deaths and more importantly, fear escalation leading to WWIII, or least more conflict in Europe. Look at Serbia and Kosovo. The Russia Ukraine war has led to other hostilities exploding. I don't think this is the end unfortunately. Wonder what China is thinking re: Taiwan now.
That position is a cowardly and implicit support for Russia to keep its annexed lands and for Ukraine to be likely destroyed as a state, after it was given hope that military aid will be sent to at least keep Russia, a much superior force, at bay.
If you're OK with Russia taking land from neighbors by force, say it openly, so we know who we are dealing with.
Then by all means sign up for the Ukrainian army and put your money where your mouth is. .
I'm not OK with Russia taking land from neighbors by force but I also live in the real world and am not willing to sacrifice my sons to give Ukrainians back their land. Easy to support war from afar where the bombs will never hit your home and you won't see the blood, death and gore up close. War changes people and unleashes deeply primal human instincts that aren't easy to bottle back up again. I am weary of sacrificing the US for a war that would be difficult to win, lead to an uneasy peace and against a large adversary that has a long memory and believes itself a great power denied its rightful place in world affairs. Truthfully, I have no love for Russia and hope they lose but I'm not willing to unleash WWIII for a Ukrainian victory.
That's individualizing a systemic issue that has to be approached through collective action. US is not involved directly in a war, only economically. Your sons are safe. There won't be nuclear war. And nuclear bullying is not acceptable. It leads to nuclear armed countries taking lands from neighbors under threat of launching nukes.
Sorry the world is fucked up and complicated. Nevertheless, I do respect your isolationist desire, but I just have to oppose it as it runs contrary to my own interests, just as you have yours. Sometimes people have irreconcilable differences where one side must win.
It would be different if US were not complicit in the cause of the war. We reneged on a commitment to Ukrain neutrality. We also committed to defend Ukraine if they gave up Soviet nuclear weapons. It is our mess, made worse by weak leadership.
Palestinians have a right to rebel, and Israel has a right to do what? The side acting with greater restraint (as compared to its capabilities) would seem to be trying harder from a moral perspective.
Palestinians still have no state 75+ years on. I don't think Israel (the state, not necessarily a majority of the people) don't want a Palestinian state. If they did, they wouldn't be building settlement after settlement in the West Bank. The Palestinians' violence certainly helps the Israeli cause. They can say they want a two-state solution but people ignore your words and watch your actions. The longer the status quo goes on, the more land the Israelis annex. Look at East Jerusalem.
Israel can do whatever it wants in its area. If it wants to drive Gazans into the sea, then they can certainly try. What I don't want is for the US to be roped into its conflict and proxy war with Iran.
"unless the Israelis decide to forcibly expel two million Palestinians from Gaza (and annihilate the moral argument for the establishment of the State of Israel)"
#1: There are no "Palestinians" (unless you're referring to Israelis -- it was the Romans who called Israel "Palestina", in their continuing attempt to de-nationalize us). They're all 2nd/3rd-generation migrants from nearby Arab countries -- look at Dief's full name: Mohammed Diab Ibrahim al-Masri; "al-Masri" is a common suffix, which means "of Egypt". There are others, similar.
#2: There is no "moral argument for the establishment of the State of Israel" -- we are a millennia-old people, our civilization rooted in Israel. History is our "argument"... as-if one is needed.
And what -- almost 4,000 years of history aren't sufficient to establish "legality"? It takes Johnny-come-lately UN (or true-compatible) to do so? Tell that to England, France, Germany, and others... Iraq, Iran, Lebanon, and others -- for them, History was all it took... only for Israel, not.
To which I reply with my previous reply. Are there nations that don't recognize England, France, Germany? Iran, Iraq, Lebanon? (without the UN, or other, giving its imprimatur?) Only Israel, not. Heck, look at Africa! JORDAN! (created as a "gift" to the Hashemites, for WWI English allegiance).
PS: "Hashemites" is from the Hebrew השם (HaShem), which means "the Name", referring to G-d's name.
Certainly not England, France, and Germany. But other states, such as Kosovo, are not universally recognized either.
Israel is in a tough neighbourhood, something that we can all agree on. We can also agree that many Palestinians (and other Arabs) would like to drive Israelis into the sea, which is why I wrote that Hamas and Israel can never come to an actual agreement. One of the other has to win, or the kick will keep on being kicked down the road.
Somehow, because the Palestinians are now the official victim group, somehow not just every attempt to make peace but even the fact that the Palestinians have the West Bank and Gaza disappears down the memory hole. That they don't have complete sovereignty is because they refuse to make peace.
By all the laws and common sense of the world until 1945 and the idiocy of Nuremburg the Palestinians should have been crushed out of utter existence several times.
There was continuous Jewish presence in Israel throughout the Interregnum. The bulk of Israel's Jews were forcibly moved to Iraq (Babylon), where the Babylonian Talmud was developed and written; concurrently, the Jerusalem Talmud was developed and written in... Jerusalem.
Regarding Xtians: Xtianity is a religion, not a nation-people; Judaism is both.
Good luck with Britain (or is it Great Britain? England? the UK?)
There was a continuous Jewish presence but it was small and spotty. They were a tiny minority. The issue is that the Jews left Israel (not their fault, but not the Arabs fault either) and in the 2,000 year interim, other people moved in. Expecting the people to pick up and move out is not reasonable. It's interesting that Ivanka Trump can migrate to Israel and claim the land as a result of her conversion but Arabs living there for centuries cannot.
I always struggled with Judaism as an ethnicity. How can it be when there are Ethiopian Jews, Mizrahi, Ashkenazi, Sephardim, Bukaran Jews. How is there one ethnicity? I'm fine with a Jewish state based on religion but find the ethnicity argument unconvincing.
"Expecting the people to pick up and move out is not reasonable."
The faux-Palestinians are NOT those people -- the "Pals" were Arabs who came to Israel when the European Jews returned in the mid-to-late 1800s; theirs (the "Pals") was an economic migration -- like so many from Central America to the US, to earn money and send remittances back home ("home" was, and remained, elsewhere; so too, with the Arab migrants from Egypt, Morocco, etc. to Israel -- settling in Israel was never their goal).
Obviously, there was still a Jewish minority, but what of the other non-Jewish inhabitants of Israel/Palestine/whatever you want to call it? What were they?
Arguments are counterproductive. Israel does not need to justify its existence. In truth it cannot. Those who demand such a justification are not acting in good faith because no argument would ever satisfy them. People who feel aggrieved by Israel's existence are entitled to their views (which are fully justified if you assume that Jews ought to live only at the sufferance of others) but this is a political reformulation of the phenomenon Heine observed, the trade-off in tolerance: "you tolerate my breathing/ I tolerate your rages".
Israel assures its existence through force. The only case that needs to be made at the moment is military.
"For Schmitt, the political is reducible to the existential distinction between friend and enemy. This distinction arises from the fact of human diversity: identities and practices, beliefs and way of life can, in principle, be in conflict with one another"
The Hamas raid should be a lesson for left wingers in the West but we all know that more immigrants are going to be welcomed
Western liberals have more faith in their sacred creed than even the most fundamentalist member of Hamas.
In their fantasy universe anyone from anywhere can be turned into a cosmopolitan humanitarian who waves the Pride flag and loves Taylor Swift if only they get the proper reeducation and have all their wounds tended to by a healing circle of trauma-informed social workers.
Western liberals, whether they know or admit it or not, are so deeply Christian, they really believe that every noble savage on the planet will see the light and convert to their creed if only they meet the right priest and are stirred by his sermons about Justice and Equality.
"So much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don’t even know that fire is hot." Orwell
Jesus never said everyone would convert. This is a mistaken version of Christianity. He asked, in fact, if upon His return, He would find faith on the earth. Prophecies in accepted Scripture such as Revelation tell the opposite story than that fantasy. And that is the crazy rainbow dreamworld of the State Dept. What does it do for them to get a Pride parade everywhere?
Jesus may have never been in the conversion business but so many of his followers were, from the Crusades to the Conquistadors to the missionairies to all the Mrs Jellybys of the British Empire etc...
"What does it do for them to get a Pride parade everywhere?" What did it ever get any conqueror to hoist their flag over the churches and govt buildings of a defeated opponent? Pride! LOL Pride that they are the victor, that they own you and your people and that from now on they will be teaching your children and replacing your faith with theirs.
The Pride flag is the official flag of the GAE, as I think Niccolo has mentioned many times.
Yes but you can't tell me the Crusaders were talking about peace, love, and understanding in the same lalaland. They knew about making alliances and strategies. People nowadays forget that the whole of the ME was once Christian -- in fact throughout history more Christians were Arabic speakers than otherwise. It is a modern myth that the Crusades were only about forced conversions. There were even Christian Mongol Emperors who had alliances with Christians of the mid and Near East.
And then there is a rather charming story about St Francis. I don't know what the GAE is
Hamas is more likely to start eating bacon than the globalist progressive oligarchy is to halt mass illegal immigration.
Xenophilia provides them with the moral pretext they believe gives them the divine right to rule plus mass illegal immigration provides them with so many other more tangible benefits: lower wages and higher property prices, lower social cohesion and union membership, plus fracturing all our societies along ethnic lines so we fight each other and not the oligarchs.
Globalists hate their own countries and citizens (most esp those who refuse to drink their Kool Aid) much more than they hate any geopolitical enemy.
Netanyahu may have to martyr these Israeli citizens. I’m thinking of the Russian response to the Moscow Theatre terror attack. The Russians accepted terrible collateral damage rather than a prolonged ordeal.
"The fact of the matter is that Gaza is an open air prison, with Israel and Egypt playing guard."
People can emigrate from Gaza, largely through Egypt and also through Israel, although the numbers are smaller.
As you know the blockade started in 2005 or 2006 to prevent the importation of material that could be used in terrorists attacks. But food and medicine and other material is not subject to the blockade and what want there is largely the result of Hamas.
Picking a fight with an enemy who is stronger than you, turned out well for the Ukrainian military. Hamas will enjoy similar success, except that it is Israel who will be portrayed as the victim.
With regards to space travel I think the author is right that it would take a older type of motivation to really get us off this rock. Unless we make some massive breakthroughs in material science rocketry will always be expensive. There are however, a number of other potentially cheaper, ways to get people and equipment into space. Things like launch loops, skyhooks, space fountains, etc. If you like that type of thing the Youtube channel Isaac Arthur has videos on all of them. The main problem with these is they are untested at the type of scale needed, would come with an enormous upfront cost, and likely take a decade or more to build. No modern day politician(or CEO) would ever green-light a project this risky and expensive, and even if they did, their successor would likely axe it. Unless a suitably large nation returns to the ethos of either the pharaohs of the Old Kingdom, or the Gothic Cathedral builders of medieval Europe, we'll at best be stuck in low earth orbit with the occasional fleeting visit to Mars.
I read the BAP piece last week and thought it was excellent. If memory serves BAP has mentioned before how you can tell if those now on the right previously came from supporting Ron Paul or supporting Bernie Sanders.
Our motivation is to procreate and live in squalor. Of course there are those who aspire to higher ideals and dream of alleviating poverty, or failing that, leaving this rock.
Regarding copper (and other materials crucial to our existence past, present and future), I’ve just read The Material World by Ed Conway. One of the most interesting books I’ve read, can’t recommend it highly enough.
I'm going to echo your call to stay level-headed as the Israel Palestine conflict unfolds. The gears are already turning in the emotional warfare machine to drag people into something they, likely, barely understand. Stay frosty anons. Try not to sperg. It never helps.
It's funny, everyone on Twitter was freaking out about that CNN story a few weeks ago, talking about how the US is virtually funding Ukr's government
"THEYRE ROBBING US TO PAY UKRAINIANS"
Nope. The Ukrainians are getting robbed too. Same as you.
On populism, I have to reread BAP's essay. Here's the thing though, "Populism" is actually a pretty watered down term. It doesn't necessarily denote any specific ideology or policy. Joe Biden was a populist on the campaign trail, talking about drug prices, oil companies, etc... it's as vague of a term as "right wing" in my opinion.
My point though is, at least to me, Populism has turned into a vague buzzword. Anti-elite, anti corporatism, down with the system etc... that's not really anything. Everyone hates corporations and the deep state.
I'm not saying this to dump on BAP or anyone else. Just my general thoughts on the term.l, specifically. And I'm not married to my analysis btw. I just feel like it's a general term that has a million different meanings depending on who/where you are
Not even quibbling: The moral argument for the establishment of the State of Israel was the Establishment of the State of Israel as a homeland for the Jewish people.
I refer to ..."forcibly expel two million Palestinians from Gaza (and annihilate the moral argument for the establishment of the State of Israel).
As for the fate of 2 million in Gaza: They made their choice.
Other than take hostages and spare one of the young women they raped [the other is dead] who's bodies living and dead they crowed over on and put on the Internet, GAZA [not HAMAS] has shown no mercy and should expect none.
The Israelis should kill some 200,000 - 300,000 and expel the rest into Egypt or the Sea.
The Sea the Philistines keep threatening to drive the Israelis into...
Now I wouldn't care, except we the USA are involved in causing this misery and suffering for our allies by empowering the savages, and they are... worse, Israel COULD collapse from being morally hollowed out by lawyers, leftists and its treacherous ally the USA. IF Israel collapses THEN America will be dragged in stumbling.
Moral argument? No nation, certainly not any Balkan nation Sir, is established or maintained by moral arguments. Utter nonsense. Not even Canada was established so...
Either the Israelis toughen up or they die. My money is that the former is more likely. There is no viable substitute for forward or aggressive defense...fighting on enemy ground and ensuring that they pay the highest possible price for their hostility.
What amazes me is the Palestinian approach. You'd think that they would have realised by now that tribal raids, gratuitous cruelty and hostage taking are a poor substitute for the Western style of warfare that aims for truly decisive outcomes. IMO the Palestinians have fallen into a trap: their preferences mesh perfectly with televised spectacle (great political theatre) that appeals to both the Muslim world and infantilized masses of the West but is a recipe for disaster once the Israelis get serious.
Israel's only advantage is that the Diaspora transformed the Jews from an Oriental rabble into modern Europeans with the advantage of a ruling elite with a cultural and social psychology that blends Teutonic and Slavonic behaviours/perspectives. Netanyahu is a former paratroop officer. He is perhaps the only Western head of gov't with a clue about how to lead a war. The next few weeks or months will be interesting.
The role of the US in forming Arab nationalism (to weaken the UK and French) and the Palestinians is greatly underappreciated. The decision to freeze the process of population transfer in 1948 (and keep the Palestinian refugees as a permanent reserve of potential recruits for war) may well have originated with either a British or UK diplomat IMHO.
The 1947 UN resolution isn’t justification for Israel. The only group whose justification comes from the UN are the Arabs, since the 1960s known as Palestinians.
Regardless of the Mid East...the sheer size of the Muslim pop'n in the West creates a new dynamic and obvious dangers. Repeating the same old policies (sponsoring Resistance Incorporated) carries obvious risks. To be utterly cynical, the extremism of the 70s, 80s and 90s could be accommodated easily enough by the West but a repeat today risks the election of populists and immigration restrictionists.
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Be polite and considerate when commenting on the Israel vs. Hamas conflict please and thank you!
The upgrade to Founding to comment is not the way to keep getting me to pay.
please don't, I've cancelled several other subscriptions today.
Thanks for writing. I am politely and considerately wishing Israel a swift (and lasting) victory in this terrible war and hopefully as few innocent people die as possible.
I am politely and considerately wishing the UN mandated borders implemented on both sides.
Those things are in direct conflict Mr. Greenwald.
Moreover you should know that Israel's present situation is now more perilous than 1947, because of the 'innocent people.'
If you live, you'll learn.
I can hope.
were the 300 000 civilians killed in their proxy war in Syria innocent? Finally they can experience the terror they inflict on others
While I do feel bad for the individual Israelis killed or taken captive by the Islamists, my sympathies for Israeli people and state as a whole is zero given the pivotal role they played in the death and expulsion of thousands of Christian Armenians in Artsakh over the last three years. In my eyes, Turks, Azeris, Hamas, are all the same. You ally with one and get bitten by another. Tough luck.
It's a tough neighborhood and Israel doesn't have the luxury of choosing its friends. The Azeris have oil and are willing to sell it to the Israelis. A strong Azerbaijan also threatens Iran, which has a 25% Azerí minority concentrated in its northwest.
Likewise, Israel can't strongly oppose Russia in Ukraine because Russia controls Syrian airspace, and the IAF needs access to run sorties to target Hezbollah/Iranian positions in Syria. Geopolitics 🤷
They can support who they want. However, I also have the luxury of not supporting countries who massacre my co-religionists.
Israel and Russia appear to have an agreement, much to the chagrin of Damascus.
And I speak as someone who used to believe in Christian Zionism, that all Christians had some kind of Biblical obligation to support the State of Israel. I cringe looking back at those days. The 2020 Artsakh War really opened my eyes so as to speak, and then further research solidified it. I understand why Jews support Israel. But if you are a Christian(particularly American Evangelical) who thinks you are obliged to support Israel because of your faith, then you are just an idiot at best and a traitor to your fellow Christians at worst(see the Armenians).
My man, also see how USA funded Al-Qaeda which became ISIS. They killed so many Christians. Russia, Assad, and Iran were the main forces against ISIS. Still USA supports islamists in Idlib
Thank God, Assad is winning in Syria or else Christianity would have been extinguished from one of its historic homelands. And US invasion of Iraq is directly responsible for the death and exodus of millions of Christians from there. Part and parcel for Western Christendom of course.
While you can't deny the incredible generosity of many regular Catholics and Protestants towards Eastern Christians in terms of education, healthcare, and financial support, the political leadership in the West consistently makes choices that makes life a living hell on Earth for Eastern Christians. From American support for Islamists under not only Democrats but from also self proclaimed Christian Republicans, to Britain consistently screwing over Russia retaking Constantinople throughout the 19th century to the Fourth Crusade.
Britain was in the business of empire, not saving souls. Losing Turkey as an ally in the lead up to WW1 fatally weakened the UK in the long run but keeping rivals like Russia as far as possible from the oil-fields of Mesopotamia and the adjacent regions of Iran was first-class geopolitical calculation.
And now they have neither their empire nor their soul.
True about the first bit, the second is not my place to speculate.
I appreciate your sympathies and feelings but very few Eastern Christians have ever supported the West. Ever. Quite the contrary.
In the 20th c. Middle Eastern Christians typically supported Arab nationalism, often in its most extreme forms (the Ba'ath and the SSNP, both of which derived their thinking from pre-war German and Italian forms of fascism). If you can identify how the West might conceivably benefit from supporting this sort of thing please explain yourself. The West (above all the UK) typically supported moderate Arab monarchies that were (and mostly still are) more tolerant and less toxic than the alternatives on offer elsewhere in the Arab world. For very sound geopolitical reasons the West also backed Kemalist Turkey.
Gov'ts need a reason to back anyone. Religious solidarity is not to be despised but this sort of thinking was rejected in Europe from the time of Richelieu. Cheap jibes about American Evangelicals are beside the point and neither the State Dep't nor the Foreign and Colonial Office have ever been in the least bit receptive to Christian Zionism.
Let me put it this way. Western interests in the region based on some balance of power geopolitical notion is irrelevant to me. I do not stay awake at night worrying about how to keep the Russians out of the Mediterranean like Disraeli did. My views on foreign policy are purely ideological. I am not alone in this. Countries all over the world from the Wahabbist Saudis to Commie Russians have had their foreign policy based on their ideology, if not completely, then at least partially mixed with pragmatism.
I have read your comments on this substack for the last year or so, and I agree with quite a lot of them. And if I understand you correctly, your past comments on this site indicates to me that you think the US also operates at least partially this way, not out of pure realist geopolitical strategy, but with a healthy dose of the "GAE" ideology.
I do not claim to be a pure rational actor concerned only with realpolitik. I am an ideological person, and I support who I support based on my ideology. I support a Baathist Syria under Russian influence that allows Christians to exist over a "moderate" Islamist Syria that my country(US) for geopolitical reasons(screwing over the Russians) supports.
If my comments about Evangelicals irks you, forgive me. I do not expect any other faction in US politics to remotely care about Middle Eastern Christians. But Christian conservatives in the US still have some political power, and Congress can and does influence foreign policy to some extent. My wish is that they would direct that political capital towards their co-religionists over Jewish Israel. Perhaps a wishful thinking but it is what it is.
America confuses/frustrates me. Figuring out its foreign policy is sudoku and I have never been sure that I have gotten it remotely right.
Re the Near East the ethno-sectarian feuding is a characteristic feature of the region, as are the constant efforts to draw in outside powers. I sincerely wish the Christians and Alawites of Syria well...ditto the Sunni Arabs and Druze too. IMHO the very best thing that they could do is avoid being dragged into a war for the sake of Resistance Incorporated (the Palestinians).
The question of Christianity in Asia is a compelling one but I do not think that the US has many easy/good options. During the early 20th c. the US actively supported Christianity in the Far East. The old pre-war China Lobby was composed of the Churches (keen on missionary work), arms manufacturers and key business groups. The China Lobby played a major role in supporting FDR's foreign policy. During the Cold War the US also relied on Christian communities in S. East Asia.
There is a compelling case for the US supporting Christian communities across Asia but the modalities are difficult to work out. And the urgency of all this pales before the great question of Christianity in Africa...where there are potential civil wars between Christians and Muslims all over the place.
I'd be very interested in practical ideas about all this.
For the Christians of Syria, the choice was to be dead or to support Assad who would at least let them live
I fully appreciate that they hardly had a choice at all but it is worth noting that the Ba'athist enthusiastically welcomed jihadists from across the world in order to discomfit the American military in Iraq. Syria declined to learn the great lesson of the Lebanese: allow third parties to wage war from your territory and exult in talk about 'resistance' and you may well regret it. And the jihadists are not more cruel than the people who work as torturers for Assad.
Well I'm not going to quibble about torturers. Except I don't think the torturers glory in making slaves of minority women nor in the general murder and mayhem and terror without a specific purpose -- and even if Assad is a dictator, this is not what he celebrates openly. I mean it is not really the "same." However, point taken.
I just want to say that in 2016 I knew nothing about General Michael Flynn (this was before the push to remove him). So I read his book, "Field of Fight" because I was quite interested in what we (the US) were doing in the ME. Flynn was a lifelong Democrat and he was Obama's head of the Defense Intelligence Agency. What Flynn wrote, IIRC, was that he went and interviewed prisoners at AbuGhraib. Apparently the staunch secularist followers of Hussein became completely hardboiled Islamist jihadists through the invasion of Iraq. These were men who had been military officers under Hussein when he had been an ally (once upon a time) of the US. I think it's important to remember that Iraq was a place, regardless of the "strongman" rule of Hussein, that had extensive modern infrastructure, a professional class, an actual parliament, such as it was, that included women representatives (again including female professionals such as doctors). Now the "shock and awe" policy decimated everything. And moreover, I don't need to say that the completely manufactured excuse for that war were deliberate lies about WMD. I remember once upon a time watching a Fox News chat show in the early 2000s when this was being debated. One of our US weapons inspectors was on, and she said, "We know they don't have any WMDs." The host asked, "How do you know?" She said, "Because we sold them to him and we know what's been destroyed." Okay, just start there and imagine yourself in Hussein's military after what was to follow.
Now Flynn's whole thesis as an Intel expert was that it was the war in Iraq that created ISIS. Whatever we want to agree with or disagree with, I don't think that's nonsense.
The war in Iraq was all but inevitable. Conflict with the Iraqi Ba'athist was confidently predicted by an oil industry insider with Gulf experience back in the early 80s if I remember correctly. It was a good call.
Saddam needed conflict. He actively sought it out. If the Ba'ath were a half-way credible political party they would have killed Saddam themselves. They didn't or couldn't and he brought the whole state down. Iraq was (and still is) an artificial state created by the British. And for the record Saddam was not Washington's man. Never. He was wooed by the Beltway but he was always an ally of the USSR.
I am not saying that America has not made grievous mistakes but I think that the cottage industry of blame in the US over Iraq is just ridiculous.
Yes. Ask a Yazidi. Ask a Kurd. Ask N Syria Christians. They are the same. Erdogan shelters Hamas leaders and has not condemned Hamas.
Are you Armenian? ?
No
If you ask me, they did not understand the neoOttoman mentality which understands only aggression. A friendly act means you have enabled whatever aggression they would like to undertake against you. How many times has Erdogan NATO member, stabbed the US in the back? Too many times to count. Until we understand the value and even excitement that aggression and grim ruthlessness has within the dream of neoOttoman caliphate we will never understand what we are dealing with.
not to mention their role in Syrian war. They didn't even stop bombing after the deadly earthquake.
They are bombing today. Sen Hollenbeck wrote a diatribe about it. Nadine Maenza was the form head of US Center for International Religious Freedom. You should see what she writes today. It is heartbreaking what is happenng. Our current heads of agencies for religious freedom under State and also the Independent bipartisan US CIRF say nothing and do nothing. They are acting as if they're blind
yep, it is all on purpose. It is not about regime change, but keeping Syria eternally as a failed state. How else can one explain them supporting different factions which were fighting each other? This way Syria can never threaten Israel they think. Why is the US fighting another country's wars contrary to their own interests as a people?
agree 100%
the christian right auto-response "we stand with Israel"..like, why or for what?
What has Israel ever done for the USA?
If anything, these political Christians shuld stand w their brothers in faith from the Middle east
Agreed. My views of Israel are neutral. I gain no pleasure in their victories or in their injuries. They are not my people. At the end of the day, I want the relationship between US and Israel to be like between say Japan and Israel. Distant and neutral, but sending brief condolences, not whole carrier strike groups, when something bad happens in either country.
Not trolling, I swear, I'm just not sure I understand this clearly:
"unless the Israelis decide to forcibly expel two million Palestinians from Gaza (and annihilate the moral argument for the establishment of the State of Israel)"
Does this mean that the moral argument for Israel rests on the Nazis and thus the Israelis must never do anything that resembles something the Nazis did? (Or that some shrieker on cable news could compare to the Nazis?) Do all roads still lead to Hitler?
I think there could be a very strong "moral argument" made for the establishment of Israel even if WW2 never happened, but I might just be feeling philo-Semitic this morning.
Cheers!
The Holocaust gave birth to the State of Israel. If Israel were to expel two million Palestinians from Gaza, it would definitely undermine its raison d'etre in the eyes of the world, with even the USA having a tough time continuing to defend it. This is not the Cold War era.
But then again, look at Nagorno-Karabakh. Maybe I'm wrong.
What happened in Nagorno-Karabakh proves it isn't difficult to forcibly remove a large population of people in a short amount of time in the 21st century. I think we're going to see more of these types of things around the world, I don't think it would happen in Gaza though I wouldn't be surprised
Unlike Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh who are welcomed in Armenia, I strongly doubt that the Palestinians would be welcome to re-settle in neighbouring Egypt (at least its ruling authorities certainly would frown upon it).
One fact that isn't talked about that much is how much other Arab countries don't want Palestinians. Maybe it's just diaspora but Jordanians and Iraqis I've met hate Palestinians and think that they're forced to engage in conflict on their behalf. And then there's Lebanese folks I've met who are Anti-Zionist only because they want to kick Palestinians out of Lebanon.
Historically hosting large Palestinian militants has been a recipe for disaster for the host country...see Black Friday in Jordan and the Lebanese civil war.
They're not welcome anywhere in the Arab world.
Long been complaints they are welcome and unnecessarily sheltered in Turkey. Yes, as distinguished from the Arab world
https://twitter.com/abdbozkurt/status/1710645866611015693?s=20
They are not willing to self govern and nobody wants them in their country. So what's the solution- from Israeli perspective? From Arab perspective? From "great powers" perspective?
It's never been hard to forcibly remove a large population.
Ugly yes.
Not hard.
True, however it has always taken a long time, tons of causalities, and like you mentioned ugly. All of those elements were missing from the recent Armenian exodus. If this was done in the 20th century it would have a bloodbath
it did and it was
thx got it...i doubt the plan is a full expulsion anyway, mostly bc no one wants the Gazans.
my politics are mostly literary anyway, i think the Jews should get all the land from the Jordan to the sea just bc the Koran is such a cheap knockoff of the Old Testament ;)
The Jews gave them their god and religion, they can at least break em off a hunk of land...
thanks again
BRILLIANT.
as for me, Antiquity has been invoked and answer should be in kind:
Caedite Eos.
no jews and their book(s), no koran and no allah...recognize!
Well Extra Eccelsium Nulla Sallus et cetera...
But we have to wait for the end until their all exhausted and return to the True Faith. Dobbs was just the beginning, our plan unfolds...
BWAHHH !!! Oh, I meant "Amen."
CONSILIUM saltem habemus, TE victi.
[AT LEAST WE HAVE A PLAN, YOU LOSERS.]
Nicolo: Israel was established by dint of work and arms over decades from the 1880s to the 1940s. The actual Moral Argument you may refer to is.... The Balfour Declaration in 1917 ? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balfour_Declaration
Israel is a creation above all of the Jewish Colonists and after that the Crown.
Israel was nearly already established by the time WW2 started.
The Jews and the Arabs were at war from the 1930s, The British being on both sides...as America is on both sides now...
The Holocaust simply made the matter easier for the Americans in their creation the United Nations. At the time it was more than awkward even for the Americans to have a Jewish State, also at the time America wasn't an Israeli ally but an observer on the ground, not always a sympathetic one. America and Israel aren't allies until after the 1967 war.
That Israel came up from the ground 1945-1947 and is a creation of the UN is a nice story, it lacks the merit of being true. However, the UN resolution canard DOES provide a Moral Argument for the establishment of a Palestinian State. As it happens that's tried ...and failed. Palestinians don't want a state, they want to destroy Israel.
The previous attempts under first the PLO now called PA and now HAMAS in Gaza since 2006 have made this clear.
I recall reading a great book on Jews who immigrated to Ottoman Empire Palestine a the end of the 19th century and beginning of 20th who were basically laying the foundation for a future Jewish state. One man loomed large in the book. He surveying the land, learning about its topography and native plants to make the dessert bloom. His name was Aaron Aaronsohn. Jewish groups pressured the Ottomans into letting them migrate to Palestine and the Arabs living there were livid as they knew what increased Jewish migration meant. I wish I remembered the name of the book. It supported what you said above.
"Palestinians don't want a state, they want to destroy Israel" says it all.
No, Israel could feed Palestinian toddlers to piranhas and the West, led by the United States, would make excuses, if not applaud.
You haven't been paying attention to most of the recent Democrat rhetoric.
Iike Ilhan Omar:
"Ilhan Omar
@IlhanMN
·
Oct 7
I condemn the horrific acts we are seeing unfold today in Israel against children, women, the elderly, and the unarmed people who are being slaughtered and taken hostage by Hamas. Such senseless violence will only repeat the back and forth cycle we've seen, which we cannot allow…"?
When we burned on 9/11 , the Palestinians applauded.
Including the ones in America in Paterson, NJ [the ADL was lying about 'soccer game', a ridiculous lie at that].
But in any case we've been holding the Israelis back. We were tougher on Serbia and certainly poor Iraq , or Vietnam, or the Germans than we let the Israelis be on the Palestinians. Now Gaza has made its choice, the choice was HAMAS.
The Palestinians are simply a death cult, they don't want a state, they want to destroy Israel. Which wouldn't be our problem had we not gotten involved or ended the alliance with the Cold War as we should have, but we meddled.
Now we must allow our ally to exist, and now the stakes are existential for Israel.
Worse: it is not a destruction of Gaza America should now fear, not that Israel will go too far. Our actual problem is Israel is now revealed to be extraordinarily weak in will for all it's power and it's existence could unravel - sucking us in. The alliance went on too long and NOW we're in the position of Imperial Germany watching Austro-Hungary unravel in the Balkans ....or perchance a war we America stumble into unprepared in any way.
Excellent take. The US needed to rationalise its obligations after the Cold War...instead the Beltway used foreign and defense policy as an excuse to build up frequent flyer points and reshape the world. It was insane to punish the Israelis for complying with George Bush's pleas to stay out of GW1 by forcing Arafat on them via Oslo. It was insane to reward Arafat for backing Saddam Hussein.
Now the petrodollar is crumbling but Washington is left with a foreign policy designed for a world that does not exist.
A entire people is a death cult?
And Israel is not and has not requested a formal alliance with the US, as an alliance entails obligations as well as rights.
FF/ 1] yes they are a death cult, and a 'people' who are a PRISON GANG.
This is just a prison gang that arose in the camps.
They have ONE goal and demand - destroy Israel.
No other interests.
2] the term Palestinian did not exist until 1960s, and certainly not in 1947.
3] Do you deny and obfuscate further that their implacable demand is the destruction of Israel?
4] Just for laughs I'm not Jewish, at all.
I begin to suspect ....LOL.
5] Pals lost me when they cheered at 9/11. Yes, in America too.
6] If you missed this weekend, they showed who they were...yet again !
7] We've been an ally of Israel since 1967. Regardless of paperwork.
Indeed, the less paper the more real.
8] which is the least we could do - given that we the USA, via the UN [utterly our phony front company] have been funding the entire Palestinian 'nation' since the 1940s.
9] If you are eager to have the US betray Israel, relax...we are...
10] And yes, they're a prison gang death cult, similar to war bands such as the Pechenegs of the past. Most such people's have already disappeared, they can join them.
11] GAZA has made it's choice, and it's Choice was HAMAS - and Death.
12] Learn to respect other's choices, in this case death.
Lol, without bothering to unpacknyour gish gallop in detail, since you say so, it must be a death cult. And of course, Israelis who cheered at 9/11 are excused.
One question, why does this attack stop a Saudi and Israeli peace deal I don't see the relation that much? Is it because of Arab/Muslim solidarity or something
Also in regards to the effects of this war, it's definitely going to be costly if Hezbollah and the West Bank rise up( not even including every other armed group in the ME with gripes with Israel. I mean the potential casualties of just going to into Gaza is going to make every other war Israel fought pale in comparison. Israel will probably win in this conflict however it will be extremely destructive and not just another Intifada or 2006 War repeat. All and all just terrible
Saudi Arabia is the "land of the two holy sites" (Mecca and Medina) and therefore has a responsibility regarding the Islamic World. This puts them in a bind as they have to outwardly side with the Palestinians or face discontent at home.
Oh right, yeah I was just wondering how the attack was related to Saudi's foreign policy considering recently they have been more pragmatic. They pretty much ignored China's treatment of the Ugyhurs and I think their relationships with Pakistan have soured. I assumed that they would have carried that some of pragmatism toward Hamas. But then again the Palestinian Issue is way more significant and longstanding than Ugyhurs and Pakistan
Really can’t emphasize enough that in the Gulf *nothing* has changed regarding sympathy for the Palestinian cause. In countries that have “normalized” relations there is massive surveillance and censorship around the issue but the people are all still hugely pro-Palestine. In such a large country as Saudi it would be very hard to control public sentiment in the same way it’s controlled in the UAE (for example). And all of them have grown up - for 50 years - watching scenes of extreme violence coming out of Palestine. There is no censorship of the videos and images here until recently.
The Gulf is in a very tricky situation. The ruling families are pragmatic and sane. They would remember the treachery of the Palestinians towards their Kuwaiti benefactors during Gulf War 1 but need to be mindful of regional factors (Iran). Also the Gulf was bullied into accepting Muslim Brotherhood refugees from Egypt who fled Nasser. Many got jobs as policemen or as teachers.
The same people seething at Ukraine aid are all in favor of Israel genociding the Palestinians as vengeance and unlimited aid and support.
The amount of compassion and empathy towards Israel is just nauseating, a country that's unwilling to abide by international law and is essentially a rogue state.
If Palestinians attack the people that are colonizing parts of the country that should be theirs according to international law, it's terrorism.
What are Palestinians supposed to do? Lie down and die? Disappear so Israel is feeling safe?
I can't allow this kind of comment to stay up. Apologies. I will remove it shortly.
You see a filthy chimp dragging a white woman with bloodied hands and face by the hair and you have a hard time picking a side. Well karma's a bitch and it will come for you.
Thank you!
There are some people from Nagorno-Karabakh who have at least a 3000 year history and have experienced the same by people using Israeli weapons. Let's talk about karma when Erdogan, Hamas supporter, is armed for a new Armenian Genocide/Ethnic Cleansing, and denies the first which inspired Hitler!
There is no doubt in my mind about the hideousness of the jihadist militants and what they do. And my sympathy is 200% with those victims.
But many of us have seen this for decades already. Karma is complicated when it was Israel that was arming such people recently
I left a comment already saying that Israel's support of Azerbaijan is a terrible crime, one amongst many, but the host deleted it. Not sure why, but the word 'orc' sets him off I think.
Thank you. Please be assured there are many of us who are in grief with Israel for these horrific things
take a deep breath, fighting online isn't going to help anyone.
What "white" rule?
Are Jews white?
Do you embrace European identity? Do you support European ethnostates where we get to expel outsiders, such as Arab or Jewish people?
Yes, Ashkenazi Jews are white. Yes I support European ethnostates.
I support a Jewish ethnostate in Israel too. But we're a minority in our groups. Most Jewish people are too afraid of Europeans to ever accept that demand. They have historical reasons which I acknowledge. And most right wing Europeans would rather see Israel destroyed, cause they are lacking consistency.
I can't really agree with the expectation that Palestinians just give up, for the same reason that I cannot agree Ukrainians give up. You'll have to fully break them, which you just might, and it will have consequences, and justify a return to a previous state of the planet where empires took what they wanted by force.
And Israel is tiny, and not an empire.
Majority of Israelis are Sephardic, and brown skinned.
1) This is a cringe Hasbara meme that is arrived at by declaring anyone with => 25% 'Sephardi' ancestry to be 'Sephardi' (see (2) for explanation of scare quotes). If demographic trends continue, it will be the case, at which point the wheels will fall off and Israel will look like Mexico. But, right, now it's not true.
2) Technically, almost no-one in Israel is Sephardi, since this term properly refers to the (white!) descendants of the Spanish diaspora, who mostly died in the Holocaust (principally Salonika - the head of Pfizer is a rare descendant). The Israeli neologism 'Mizrahi' is a bit cringe, but it effectively disambiguates the group you are talking about.
3) The fact is that economic, social and political power is in the hands of Ashkenazim. Every country forms a natural racial hierarchy and, in Israel, it's Ashkenazim at the top (and Christian Arabs, if they want it). You can try and cover this up without mountains of nonsense about feminism and LGBTQ as the 'Left' does, or flail pointlessly against it, like the 'Right', but it is what it is. The natural place of Gazans in this pyramid is right at the bottom, and they should be grateful for that because it's a lot better than they could do on their own. But it's moot because they chose to make [redacted] warfare and, as result, they must [redacted for the scruples of the host].
My simple point is that the "white rule" line of thinking is idiotic and a red herring.
But your 'simple point' is wrong. White rule is an all-pervasive feature of the Israeli polity, and essential to understanding its dynamics.
Average BAP fan
The Palestinians certainly do have a right to rebel. With respect to Israel, they are under the protection of the USA, so much so that they no longer have to act rationally, as they can get away with quite a bit in terms of international law due to said US protection.
Yes, that's the cold truth.
I think I'm gonna make a list of all the Matt Gaetz and RonDesantis types, also all sorts of Elon-related "right-wing" celebrities that have for months demanded all aid to Ukraine stops so Russia can take what it wants, only to suddenly come out with "Israel is our greatest ally and will forever have our support".
"Biden funded this" and "if Trump was still in office" hottakes are just as worthy, especially when Trump is in his copecage website crying crocodile tears about Israel too.
You can count on Sean Penn to virtue signal his support for the underdog - Israel.
lol, yes
isn't virtue-signaling about the underdog the essence of leftist positioning? when the underdog becomes the overdog, they change sides
Some of those stop aid to Ukraine supports believe it will only prolong the conflict, resulting in more deaths and more importantly, fear escalation leading to WWIII, or least more conflict in Europe. Look at Serbia and Kosovo. The Russia Ukraine war has led to other hostilities exploding. I don't think this is the end unfortunately. Wonder what China is thinking re: Taiwan now.
That position is a cowardly and implicit support for Russia to keep its annexed lands and for Ukraine to be likely destroyed as a state, after it was given hope that military aid will be sent to at least keep Russia, a much superior force, at bay.
If you're OK with Russia taking land from neighbors by force, say it openly, so we know who we are dealing with.
Honesty should come first.
Then by all means sign up for the Ukrainian army and put your money where your mouth is. .
I'm not OK with Russia taking land from neighbors by force but I also live in the real world and am not willing to sacrifice my sons to give Ukrainians back their land. Easy to support war from afar where the bombs will never hit your home and you won't see the blood, death and gore up close. War changes people and unleashes deeply primal human instincts that aren't easy to bottle back up again. I am weary of sacrificing the US for a war that would be difficult to win, lead to an uneasy peace and against a large adversary that has a long memory and believes itself a great power denied its rightful place in world affairs. Truthfully, I have no love for Russia and hope they lose but I'm not willing to unleash WWIII for a Ukrainian victory.
That's individualizing a systemic issue that has to be approached through collective action. US is not involved directly in a war, only economically. Your sons are safe. There won't be nuclear war. And nuclear bullying is not acceptable. It leads to nuclear armed countries taking lands from neighbors under threat of launching nukes.
Sorry the world is fucked up and complicated. Nevertheless, I do respect your isolationist desire, but I just have to oppose it as it runs contrary to my own interests, just as you have yours. Sometimes people have irreconcilable differences where one side must win.
It would be different if US were not complicit in the cause of the war. We reneged on a commitment to Ukrain neutrality. We also committed to defend Ukraine if they gave up Soviet nuclear weapons. It is our mess, made worse by weak leadership.
And....the Palestinians have a right to DIE if their rebellion fails.
Palestinians have a right to rebel, and Israel has a right to do what? The side acting with greater restraint (as compared to its capabilities) would seem to be trying harder from a moral perspective.
Palestinians still have no state 75+ years on. I don't think Israel (the state, not necessarily a majority of the people) don't want a Palestinian state. If they did, they wouldn't be building settlement after settlement in the West Bank. The Palestinians' violence certainly helps the Israeli cause. They can say they want a two-state solution but people ignore your words and watch your actions. The longer the status quo goes on, the more land the Israelis annex. Look at East Jerusalem.
Israel can do whatever it wants in its area. If it wants to drive Gazans into the sea, then they can certainly try. What I don't want is for the US to be roped into its conflict and proxy war with Iran.
The PA was offered a state, and refused.
The Palestinian cause certainly aligns with our Western fetishization of victimhood.
How would international law move the Gaza border?
Go ask Hamas.
"unless the Israelis decide to forcibly expel two million Palestinians from Gaza (and annihilate the moral argument for the establishment of the State of Israel)"
#1: There are no "Palestinians" (unless you're referring to Israelis -- it was the Romans who called Israel "Palestina", in their continuing attempt to de-nationalize us). They're all 2nd/3rd-generation migrants from nearby Arab countries -- look at Dief's full name: Mohammed Diab Ibrahim al-Masri; "al-Masri" is a common suffix, which means "of Egypt". There are others, similar.
#2: There is no "moral argument for the establishment of the State of Israel" -- we are a millennia-old people, our civilization rooted in Israel. History is our "argument"... as-if one is needed.
Yes, millennia old. I was speaking specifically about the legal State of Israel, not the people.
And what -- almost 4,000 years of history aren't sufficient to establish "legality"? It takes Johnny-come-lately UN (or true-compatible) to do so? Tell that to England, France, Germany, and others... Iraq, Iran, Lebanon, and others -- for them, History was all it took... only for Israel, not.
Legality in the sense of establishing the state and having it recognized by other states.
To which I reply with my previous reply. Are there nations that don't recognize England, France, Germany? Iran, Iraq, Lebanon? (without the UN, or other, giving its imprimatur?) Only Israel, not. Heck, look at Africa! JORDAN! (created as a "gift" to the Hashemites, for WWI English allegiance).
PS: "Hashemites" is from the Hebrew השם (HaShem), which means "the Name", referring to G-d's name.
Certainly not England, France, and Germany. But other states, such as Kosovo, are not universally recognized either.
Israel is in a tough neighbourhood, something that we can all agree on. We can also agree that many Palestinians (and other Arabs) would like to drive Israelis into the sea, which is why I wrote that Hamas and Israel can never come to an actual agreement. One of the other has to win, or the kick will keep on being kicked down the road.
Yes. One has to win.
And end this.
Now.
Somehow, because the Palestinians are now the official victim group, somehow not just every attempt to make peace but even the fact that the Palestinians have the West Bank and Gaza disappears down the memory hole. That they don't have complete sovereignty is because they refuse to make peace.
By all the laws and common sense of the world until 1945 and the idiocy of Nuremburg the Palestinians should have been crushed out of utter existence several times.
There was a pretty big gap for 2,000 years wasn't there?
Also, we Christians have a millennia-old history as well but I don't demand an Italian passport simply because of it.
Lastly, I'm content for you to have an ethno-state as long as the British can have one too. We've been here continuously for 1,500 years.
There was continuous Jewish presence in Israel throughout the Interregnum. The bulk of Israel's Jews were forcibly moved to Iraq (Babylon), where the Babylonian Talmud was developed and written; concurrently, the Jerusalem Talmud was developed and written in... Jerusalem.
Regarding Xtians: Xtianity is a religion, not a nation-people; Judaism is both.
Good luck with Britain (or is it Great Britain? England? the UK?)
There was a continuous Jewish presence but it was small and spotty. They were a tiny minority. The issue is that the Jews left Israel (not their fault, but not the Arabs fault either) and in the 2,000 year interim, other people moved in. Expecting the people to pick up and move out is not reasonable. It's interesting that Ivanka Trump can migrate to Israel and claim the land as a result of her conversion but Arabs living there for centuries cannot.
I always struggled with Judaism as an ethnicity. How can it be when there are Ethiopian Jews, Mizrahi, Ashkenazi, Sephardim, Bukaran Jews. How is there one ethnicity? I'm fine with a Jewish state based on religion but find the ethnicity argument unconvincing.
"Expecting the people to pick up and move out is not reasonable."
The faux-Palestinians are NOT those people -- the "Pals" were Arabs who came to Israel when the European Jews returned in the mid-to-late 1800s; theirs (the "Pals") was an economic migration -- like so many from Central America to the US, to earn money and send remittances back home ("home" was, and remained, elsewhere; so too, with the Arab migrants from Egypt, Morocco, etc. to Israel -- settling in Israel was never their goal).
So who was living in the region during the time the Jews weren’t there exactly??
There was no "time [when] the Jews weren't there"... in Israel. As for "the region", the Middle East is large.
Obviously, there was still a Jewish minority, but what of the other non-Jewish inhabitants of Israel/Palestine/whatever you want to call it? What were they?
Vikings discovered and settled America a thousand years ago. Because of that I claim land of USA for the Norwegians
"Come and take it" :)
In the end that is what is boils down to :D IDK, we'll just buy your companies with our sovereign wealth fund
Arguments are counterproductive. Israel does not need to justify its existence. In truth it cannot. Those who demand such a justification are not acting in good faith because no argument would ever satisfy them. People who feel aggrieved by Israel's existence are entitled to their views (which are fully justified if you assume that Jews ought to live only at the sufferance of others) but this is a political reformulation of the phenomenon Heine observed, the trade-off in tolerance: "you tolerate my breathing/ I tolerate your rages".
Israel assures its existence through force. The only case that needs to be made at the moment is military.
Dr. Jerry Coyne, UChicago professor evolutionary biology, has a great write-up on the newspaper's of record, as they say, coverage.....
https://whyevolutionistrue.com/2023/10/08/the-nyts-distortions-about-israel/
BTW, right now the NYTimes front page sub-healine calls the terrorist attacks "surge from Gaza".
The mainstream media can not be trusted on anything touching on identity or Israel, something I learned on my own a couple of decades+ ago.
Chomsky and Herman went at great length on the NY Times' coverage of Israel a few decades back.
Chomsky is a fraud.
"For Schmitt, the political is reducible to the existential distinction between friend and enemy. This distinction arises from the fact of human diversity: identities and practices, beliefs and way of life can, in principle, be in conflict with one another"
The Hamas raid should be a lesson for left wingers in the West but we all know that more immigrants are going to be welcomed
definitely
Western liberals have more faith in their sacred creed than even the most fundamentalist member of Hamas.
In their fantasy universe anyone from anywhere can be turned into a cosmopolitan humanitarian who waves the Pride flag and loves Taylor Swift if only they get the proper reeducation and have all their wounds tended to by a healing circle of trauma-informed social workers.
Western liberals, whether they know or admit it or not, are so deeply Christian, they really believe that every noble savage on the planet will see the light and convert to their creed if only they meet the right priest and are stirred by his sermons about Justice and Equality.
"So much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don’t even know that fire is hot." Orwell
Jesus never said everyone would convert. This is a mistaken version of Christianity. He asked, in fact, if upon His return, He would find faith on the earth. Prophecies in accepted Scripture such as Revelation tell the opposite story than that fantasy. And that is the crazy rainbow dreamworld of the State Dept. What does it do for them to get a Pride parade everywhere?
Jesus may have never been in the conversion business but so many of his followers were, from the Crusades to the Conquistadors to the missionairies to all the Mrs Jellybys of the British Empire etc...
"What does it do for them to get a Pride parade everywhere?" What did it ever get any conqueror to hoist their flag over the churches and govt buildings of a defeated opponent? Pride! LOL Pride that they are the victor, that they own you and your people and that from now on they will be teaching your children and replacing your faith with theirs.
The Pride flag is the official flag of the GAE, as I think Niccolo has mentioned many times.
Yes but you can't tell me the Crusaders were talking about peace, love, and understanding in the same lalaland. They knew about making alliances and strategies. People nowadays forget that the whole of the ME was once Christian -- in fact throughout history more Christians were Arabic speakers than otherwise. It is a modern myth that the Crusades were only about forced conversions. There were even Christian Mongol Emperors who had alliances with Christians of the mid and Near East.
And then there is a rather charming story about St Francis. I don't know what the GAE is
Global American Empire
Hopefully migration to Europe from the Middle East is brought to a halt. Same for migration to the US from Central America and the rest of the world.
HA! wishful thinking...
Hamas is more likely to start eating bacon than the globalist progressive oligarchy is to halt mass illegal immigration.
Xenophilia provides them with the moral pretext they believe gives them the divine right to rule plus mass illegal immigration provides them with so many other more tangible benefits: lower wages and higher property prices, lower social cohesion and union membership, plus fracturing all our societies along ethnic lines so we fight each other and not the oligarchs.
Globalists hate their own countries and citizens (most esp those who refuse to drink their Kool Aid) much more than they hate any geopolitical enemy.
Maybe, but the times, they are a changin'.
That is not Christian, by any stretch.
Netanyahu may have to martyr these Israeli citizens. I’m thinking of the Russian response to the Moscow Theatre terror attack. The Russians accepted terrible collateral damage rather than a prolonged ordeal.
They may not have a choice, I give it 3 days for the media narrative to shift from "Hamas invasión" to "de-escalate to protect the innocent Gazans".
Correct
"The fact of the matter is that Gaza is an open air prison, with Israel and Egypt playing guard."
People can emigrate from Gaza, largely through Egypt and also through Israel, although the numbers are smaller.
As you know the blockade started in 2005 or 2006 to prevent the importation of material that could be used in terrorists attacks. But food and medicine and other material is not subject to the blockade and what want there is largely the result of Hamas.
Picking a fight with an enemy who is stronger than you, turned out well for the Ukrainian military. Hamas will enjoy similar success, except that it is Israel who will be portrayed as the victim.
Excellent as always. Thank you.
With regards to space travel I think the author is right that it would take a older type of motivation to really get us off this rock. Unless we make some massive breakthroughs in material science rocketry will always be expensive. There are however, a number of other potentially cheaper, ways to get people and equipment into space. Things like launch loops, skyhooks, space fountains, etc. If you like that type of thing the Youtube channel Isaac Arthur has videos on all of them. The main problem with these is they are untested at the type of scale needed, would come with an enormous upfront cost, and likely take a decade or more to build. No modern day politician(or CEO) would ever green-light a project this risky and expensive, and even if they did, their successor would likely axe it. Unless a suitably large nation returns to the ethos of either the pharaohs of the Old Kingdom, or the Gothic Cathedral builders of medieval Europe, we'll at best be stuck in low earth orbit with the occasional fleeting visit to Mars.
I read the BAP piece last week and thought it was excellent. If memory serves BAP has mentioned before how you can tell if those now on the right previously came from supporting Ron Paul or supporting Bernie Sanders.
Curious if you've seen this article: https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/youre-not-going-to-like-what-comes?utm_source=%2Fsearch%2Fmultipolar&utm_medium=reader2
Seems relevant with the Israeli-Hamas war starting
Our motivation is to procreate and live in squalor. Of course there are those who aspire to higher ideals and dream of alleviating poverty, or failing that, leaving this rock.
Regarding copper (and other materials crucial to our existence past, present and future), I’ve just read The Material World by Ed Conway. One of the most interesting books I’ve read, can’t recommend it highly enough.
Will check out.. Thanks for the recommendation.
I'm going to echo your call to stay level-headed as the Israel Palestine conflict unfolds. The gears are already turning in the emotional warfare machine to drag people into something they, likely, barely understand. Stay frosty anons. Try not to sperg. It never helps.
It's funny, everyone on Twitter was freaking out about that CNN story a few weeks ago, talking about how the US is virtually funding Ukr's government
"THEYRE ROBBING US TO PAY UKRAINIANS"
Nope. The Ukrainians are getting robbed too. Same as you.
On populism, I have to reread BAP's essay. Here's the thing though, "Populism" is actually a pretty watered down term. It doesn't necessarily denote any specific ideology or policy. Joe Biden was a populist on the campaign trail, talking about drug prices, oil companies, etc... it's as vague of a term as "right wing" in my opinion.
For populism I believe in the article BAP mostly narrows it down to Bannonism, which does have some concrete policies associated with it.
Sounds about right, again have to reread it.
My point though is, at least to me, Populism has turned into a vague buzzword. Anti-elite, anti corporatism, down with the system etc... that's not really anything. Everyone hates corporations and the deep state.
I'm not saying this to dump on BAP or anyone else. Just my general thoughts on the term.l, specifically. And I'm not married to my analysis btw. I just feel like it's a general term that has a million different meanings depending on who/where you are
Scott Greer had an article about populism just yesterday. It is an interesting read.
https://substack.com/inbox/post/137731213
Will check it out!
Not even quibbling: The moral argument for the establishment of the State of Israel was the Establishment of the State of Israel as a homeland for the Jewish people.
I refer to ..."forcibly expel two million Palestinians from Gaza (and annihilate the moral argument for the establishment of the State of Israel).
As for the fate of 2 million in Gaza: They made their choice.
Other than take hostages and spare one of the young women they raped [the other is dead] who's bodies living and dead they crowed over on and put on the Internet, GAZA [not HAMAS] has shown no mercy and should expect none.
The Israelis should kill some 200,000 - 300,000 and expel the rest into Egypt or the Sea.
The Sea the Philistines keep threatening to drive the Israelis into...
Now I wouldn't care, except we the USA are involved in causing this misery and suffering for our allies by empowering the savages, and they are... worse, Israel COULD collapse from being morally hollowed out by lawyers, leftists and its treacherous ally the USA. IF Israel collapses THEN America will be dragged in stumbling.
Moral argument? No nation, certainly not any Balkan nation Sir, is established or maintained by moral arguments. Utter nonsense. Not even Canada was established so...
Indeed Canada collapses under virtue signaling.
Either the Israelis toughen up or they die. My money is that the former is more likely. There is no viable substitute for forward or aggressive defense...fighting on enemy ground and ensuring that they pay the highest possible price for their hostility.
What amazes me is the Palestinian approach. You'd think that they would have realised by now that tribal raids, gratuitous cruelty and hostage taking are a poor substitute for the Western style of warfare that aims for truly decisive outcomes. IMO the Palestinians have fallen into a trap: their preferences mesh perfectly with televised spectacle (great political theatre) that appeals to both the Muslim world and infantilized masses of the West but is a recipe for disaster once the Israelis get serious.
Israel's only advantage is that the Diaspora transformed the Jews from an Oriental rabble into modern Europeans with the advantage of a ruling elite with a cultural and social psychology that blends Teutonic and Slavonic behaviours/perspectives. Netanyahu is a former paratroop officer. He is perhaps the only Western head of gov't with a clue about how to lead a war. The next few weeks or months will be interesting.
I’m surprised and pleased the Israelis are off to a good start.
They cut off power, water, food, and from the Egypt side too, and have said no negotiations for hostages.
Now Gaza and the Palestinians made their choice and the world should respect their choice.
No mercy.
Once again; the Palestinians are a prison gang created by the UN, which means the USA.
HAMAS apex prison gang.
Time to close the Pal account.
> 2 million is a rounding error.
The role of the US in forming Arab nationalism (to weaken the UK and French) and the Palestinians is greatly underappreciated. The decision to freeze the process of population transfer in 1948 (and keep the Palestinian refugees as a permanent reserve of potential recruits for war) may well have originated with either a British or UK diplomat IMHO.
The 1947 UN resolution isn’t justification for Israel. The only group whose justification comes from the UN are the Arabs, since the 1960s known as Palestinians.
The UN is the USA, which has had enough.
Everyone who counts has had enough.
Regardless of the Mid East...the sheer size of the Muslim pop'n in the West creates a new dynamic and obvious dangers. Repeating the same old policies (sponsoring Resistance Incorporated) carries obvious risks. To be utterly cynical, the extremism of the 70s, 80s and 90s could be accommodated easily enough by the West but a repeat today risks the election of populists and immigration restrictionists.