Why anyone would tolerate a guy like this to avoid short-term fallout is a part of politics I can’t understand. It seems to me that a single partner being willing to bite the bullet would defeat him.
I thought you meant why Biden tolerated him, he’s the one trying to avoid short-term fallout, congress usually does not get blamed for foreign policy…except in Ukraine…actually lots of exceptions :/
I mean why would anyone tolerate a political actor who’s actively famous for perpetually dicking over people who tolerate him. He does it within Israeli politics too; with the forever war they’re currently in (so he doesn’t have to face an election) being just one example.
This is no different than the other 5 times we’ve heard about Biden scolding or begging or setting red lines with Netanyahu behind closed doors, while continuing to send them weapons and protecting them from anyone trying to stop the genocide.
Biden was the most fanatical supporter of Israel in the 80s. Even Ronald Reagan told Israel to GTFO out of Beirut when he saw the barbarity of the IDF in the early 80s. He said to the then PM of Israel that they were doing a holocaust. Even when the PM tried to admonish Reagan by telling him ‘don’t tell me about holocaust, I know about the holocaust’ Reagan told him to fuck off and withdraw or he will withdraw support.
After hanging up Reagan turned to an aide and said ‘I had no idea I had that kind of power’.
I would argue its the reverse, most the media is a corporate/billionaire owned. Billionaire and corporate media isnt going to act in the public’s best interest.
How about, you know, actually let her create and execute foreign policy before you judge her. She’s clearly started distancing herself from Biden’s carte blanche approach, but it’s not a good idea (electorally) to move to fast on that front, because AIPAC throws a LOT of cash around.
If you want to criticize them on their previous actions sure. But she isn’t the one sending the bombs. And her only actions so far have been to call for a ceasefire. Making up conversations between her and the Israelis isn’t criticizing her, it’s propaganda.
You’re barking up the wrong tree. I understand Hamas as a resistance organization to nearly a century of military occupation, apartheid, and ethnic cleansing. All for the purpose of some 16th century colonialist idea of racial superiority.
But America ain’t there yet. So flying the colors of Hamas, spray painting their name, and wearing the red triangle are all things that force politicians to respond in a specific way. And unless someone figures out they were infiltrators or the photos were photoshopped then the organizers screwed up. When I marched with pro Palestinian groups earlier this year the organizers were on top of preventing that.
The biggest thing we can do going forward isn’t to lament a boiler plate statement, it’s to educate people on why Hamas exists in the first place.
Okay, so when I searched before I didn’t find any Hamas flags in the protest. Google is fucking garbage these days.
Mea culpa.
That said, she didn’t have to condemn everyone. She’s running against Donald “very fine people on both sides” Trump. He knows he needs to speak to the extremes in his base to win, it’s why he got even more votes in 2020 than in 2016, and she needs to speak to her own base too. Instead, she threw the baby out with the bathwater.
Whatever. Maybe she’s just a coward and not willing to take a stand that would get attacked in the media. There’s a reason she won’t use the words “genocide” or “apartheid” or “settler-colonialism” or “war criminal”…
Let’s see who her VP is, because if it’s Josh “volunteered for the IDF” Shapiro then it’s clear as day she’s pro-genocide
(As an aside, flying Hamas’s colors does help to educate people about anticolonial resistance - it’s provocative, not wrong)
Read her statement. She condemns and condemns and condemns, and doesn’t say anything about support for any of the protesters. She merely came out in support of protest as a general concept, but you can hardly read that as her supporting the right to protest against Israel or Netanyahu.
This is a convoluted uncharitable interpretation. She specifically condemns support of pro-Hamas graffiti and rhetoric. It’s disingenuous to read that as blanket condemnation of all pro-Palestinian protesters.
No where in her statement does she clarify that any of the people protesting Netanyahu were in the right. She didn’t go that extra step to show any solidarity with any of the protesters, and maybe that’s because she’s a coward and didn’t want to appear pro-Hamas. Yet, Trump wouldn’t do that to his base. He’d condemn violence in general and then say there were very fine people on both sides, and by doing so he became even more popular. Harris missed an opportunity to make her position more clear.
In fact, she has been frustratingly vague about this entire situation! A ceasefire, but how long? Hostage release, but does that include the Palestinian hostages held by Israel? What about the ICC and ICJ decisions? What about UNRWA? Crickets…
She needs to make her position clear, and I think her VP pick will clarify it for a lot of people.
She specified her criticism was against pro-Hamas, and you’re saying because she didn’t make an additional redundant statement to clarify what that means that she’s implying something other than her literal words? And her call for ceasefire isn’t specific enough, despite the fact that she doesn’t have the authority to draft specific details anyway?
Your reading comprehension isn’t justification for extrapolating these wild hypotheticals.
Trump got that name trying to split that hair. And yeah I get the difference between the groups. But the entire point here is the American electorate at large doesn’t.
It’s never been the big politicians who lead movements in the US, unless they came into office because of a movement. Even JFK didn’t do civil rights until the movement was big enough.
a senior Israeli official [said] that Netanyahu has been feeling more emboldened to strike Iran since Biden’s July 21 decision to drop out of the 2024 US presidential race.
STOP SENDING ARMS TO ISRAEL! Seriously. If we stopped sending arms today, Israel still has enough ammo to slaughter Palestinians for another 8 months. Stopping arms sales wouldn't hinder the Israelis' war, but it might give enough pause to help Palestinian peace.
If Netanyahu wants Trump in office there’s not much out there with a higher impact than getting an American Carrier group sucked into a war with Iran and then publicly saying the democrats aren’t willing to really fight. Add in assertions they’re putting Americans in danger without letting them defend themselves…
Yeah, Biden dropping out was good but it opened the door to some real fuckery because Biden just cannot bring himself to realize the problem in the ME right now is Israel.
Well yea, because warfare has been a “man’s game” for well over 2000 years. I heard an interview with an undecided (woman) voter who was concerned that, even if western societies are more equal to women, the leaders from countries that don’t give women rights won’t respect her and the US by extension. When the interviewer asked her about powerful women in other countries like Germany, she said it’s different because “those countries” are smaller than the US.
Also it would halt any dreams that Israel has of attacking Lebanon, Jordan, and Syria. They would not have the supplies in order to wage a war against people who have actual armies.
There is a particular type of propaganda account that likes to insert nonsense into the discourse, just to interfere with people who want to have reasonable discussions. This article has more about it -- search for Peter Pomerantsev; he's quoted in that talking about it.
Of course I'm not saying the person you're replying to is doing that. I for-real genuinely have no idea whether it's that, or they're just a person with some odd ideas about geopolitics, and anyway it would be illegal for me to make that type of speculation.
Something illegal is against the law or breaks the rules. If you're reading this in jail, you've probably done something illegal, and if you're not in jail, there's plenty of time to obey the law.
You can use the adjective illegal to describe breaking the rules, as when you head-butt someone in a game. Acts that go against the law, such as robbing a bank, are also illegal. There is a wide range of things called illegal, from small acts to big ones, but no matter the seriousness, if it is against the law, it is illegal. This adjective also describes people who enter countries without official government approval, they are called "illegal immigrants" or "illegal aliens."
Definitions of illegal
(adjective) prohibited by law or by official or accepted rules
Lemmy is such a bizarre place. Honestly, I’m a little surprised I am still having this conversation. But sure!
illegal
[ ih-lee-guhl ]
adjective
forbidden by law or statute. Synonyms: unlicensed, illicit, illegitimate, unlawful
contrary to or forbidden by official rules, regulations, etc.: The referee ruled that it was an illegal forward pass.
-Dictionary.com
The great majority of the definition, comprising a full 64% of the words, talks about meaning 2. So! By your own standards, definition 1 doesn’t count anymore, and I get to complain if you try to use it. How dare you say the word means definition 1, and not definition 2, which is clearly the only real definition and the only one that actually counts. How dare you. How DARE you.
I actually found one, because I was wondering if me and the dictionary were the wrong ones, but I refuse to send it because what I already sent is accurate + sufficient. You can accept or not; it's up to you.
Yeah, and unless you’re an ultra game nerd, using illegal to refer to breaking the rules is strange. Most people say “against the rules” or “non-permissible”. It’s a small, niche usage of the word.
It’s about 6 months too late, maybe more, but I’ll take it
Now maybe try some kind of fuckin consequences maybe, before another 10% of the population of Gaza gets buried under rubble or dies of scurvy or infection or being shot by a sniper
I agree, but it's all relative. This is coming from Biden who has been a huge supporter of Israel, letting them do pretty much whatever they want to do since forever. This seems like a huge step for the man, given where he's coming from.
edit: Just realized I wasn't super clear. I was referring to the consequences part and how even if we want that, just Biden saying something as was reported is a pretty big step from where we were. I pretty much agree completely with @mozz.
There have been a ton of reports like this, where he allegedly gives Bibi a talking to behind closed doors, and then publicly continues to fully support him
White House staffers even have a nickname for it. It’s called the “hug Bibi strategy” which reportedly has been in place since the Obama administration.
So I think the reports are accurate. Biden seems to think publicly supporting Israel is the best way to arrive at a ceasefire. Of course doing something ineffective and expecting a different outcome is the definition of insanity.
What complicates matters is that there are actually good reasons to supply Israel with some military equipment. Many Israelis are living there in 3rd or sometimes 4th generation. Putting the let’s call it complicated circumstances of Israels founding aside, they are a people and deserve self-determination (just like the Palestinians do). The often repeated line “Israel has the right to defend itself” is not only a line it’s also true. You can’t just cut them of from all military assistance. So any policy is going to look kind of contradictory.
All of this isn’t me defending the Biden administration. It’s just me pointing out, that a substantially different policy would look very similar. You would hear a lot of “friends tell friends the truth” and Israel would only get the weapons they actually need to DEFEND itself (iron dome missiles etc.)
Israel would only get the weapons they actually need to DEFEND itself
If I break into your house, is it defense to shoot you when you try to take it back?
Israel, as a settler-colonial ethnostate, is not compatible with the human rights of the Palestinians who live there.
The only solution is to address the reason they Palestinians fire rockets: Return their homes, their right for exiled Palestinians to return, and an end to apartheid. None of this is compatible with the Israeli national project.
The thirty-whatever thousand number is direct deaths that can be observed and counted up, I.e. a vast undercount of the actual number.
The Lancet determined a couple of months ago that you could at that point conservatively estimate about 186,000 dead, 7.9% of the population. Conditions haven’t been improving in the couple months since that happened and it was a conservative estimate anyway, so I said 10%. The truth is there’s a lot of uncertainty, it could be higher or lower than that, but saying it’s 1.5% is definitely wrong.
Is your impression that the Lancet just has someone speculate on things and then write down whatever, and that’s what they publish? Why would a professionally arrived at and peer reviewed estimate, based on the best available information and with an explanation of where it comes from, not be preferable to the absolute minimum lower bound?
Why is the number of “verified” deaths relevant? I’m interested in the number of deaths. It’s impossible to know that number for sure, of course, but if you are one of those people that died, but your death wasn’t verified, you’re still dead. Saying that the quite large number of people who died but whose death wasn’t verified “don’t count” or something is obvious nonsense.
And the Gaza Strip population was 2.23 million in 2023. 186000 / 2230000 = 8%. Where are you getting 4%?
You and Lancet seem to use a “Gaza strip population” to inflate the number and make it look higher than it is. My number comes from the total population of Palestine people of both Gaza and West Bank.
The number of verified deaths should be relevant. It seems disrespectful not to. Every speculated death should be verified. I’m sure there is a way to verify.
It is possible for the Lancet to be biased in one way or another yes. It is possible sure. There have been credible orgs who have questioned this Lancet estimate.
Help me out here. If I start bombing Philadelphia, and I kill 10% of the city, is it relevant that Philadelphia is part of the United States and does that make the 10% number suddenly wrong?
You’re sure there is a way to verify, huh. Well hey, you should go to Gaza and help them verify. I am sure it would be easy once you’re down there, helping them dig out families or schoolrooms from under the rubble and count 1, 2, 3, okay we got 4 corpses in this one. They’re verified now so they count. Boy, only a few hundred thousand houses to go, should be done in no time. Hey guys where is the water fountain? I’m getting thirsty, and when is lunch coming?
I am mostly done; you don’t need to tell me how biased the Lancet is famous for being, or who are these unnamed orgs who are questioning its credibility.
My number comes from the way we get to that “30-whatever thousand number”
Why don’t we just say 500 thousand died in this case or even 1 million?
These people have banks and bills there are ways to gather more accurate numbers than guessing. And yes every body found is counted and attempted to be verified by hospital morgues. Dumb****. Don’t make jokes.
Yes it makes the 10% number wrong when you attempt to claim a genocide is happening.
And yes every body found is counted and attempted to be verified by hospital morgues.
What bills? What banks? What hospitals do you think are operating in Gaza right now? Who is digging up every destroyed house and carting away every corpse, to what functioning morgue?
There are 12 hospitals operating in Gaza right now. In what reality do you think they’re spending their resources on counting bodies already dead that someone transported there (for what to happen to them)?
Fuckin bills… yeah, they just fire up their home computers and pay the electric bill, and if they don’t, someone knows they’re dead. It’s all real straightforward.
Yes, they’re excellent under pretty grim conditions. However, they only count (and only attempt to count) directly verified deaths, which obviously is the lower bound on the deaths and not the actual number. The Lancet article explains this.
Didn’t we talk about this already? It seems like we did and now you’re pretending not to understand verified versus unverified deaths.
Me personally I’m going to stick with number of deaths as reported by the gaza government. Which has been proven over this past decade to have accurate numbers through multiple mass-casualty events.
Not conservative estimates or whatever crap the Lancet is trying to push.
You can do that, sure. I definitely have also observed the Gaza Health Ministry to be pretty on point (again under pretty grim conditions).
Gaza’s health ministry has declared a polio epidemic across the Palestinian enclave, blaming Israel’s devastating military offensive for the spread of the deadly virus.
In a statement on Telegram, the ministry on Monday said the situation “poses a health threat to the residents of Gaza and neighbouring countries” – the latest sign of a worsening public health emergency caused by Israel’s genocidal war since October.
Calling the epidemic a “setback” to the global polio eradication programme, the ministry called for an “immediate intervention to end the [Israeli] aggression and find radical solutions” to lack of potable water and personal hygiene, damaged sewage networks and removal of tonnes of rubbish and solid waste.
Poliomyelitis, which is spread mainly through the fecal-oral route, is a highly infectious virus that can invade the nervous system and cause paralysis. Cases of polio have declined by 99 percent worldwide since 1988, thanks to mass vaccination campaigns, and efforts continue to eradicate it everywhere.
Earlier this month, Gaza’s health ministry said it had detected “component poliovirus type 2” in coordination with the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF). The virus was found in sewage “that collects and flows between the tents of the displaced,” said the ministry.
Already scarce supplies of drinking water in the densely-populated Gaza Strip are at risk of being contaminated by the virus.
Idk man, maybe those people just didn’t pay their sewer bill. Hey, maybe that’s where the overcount of casualties came from! They forgot to pay the sewer bill online or at the banks that are all still functioning, and someone at The Lancet thought they were dead.
Can you believe 80% of Palestinians currently support the October 7th attack as well as support hamas even after all this shit? It’s mind boggling how they had it all and here they are. They choose to do and support this crap.
Justifying atrocities against people because they want to take revenge on you for the other atrocities is… well, I mean, it’s not like un heard of I guess, it’s just weird to hear it spelled out so clearly like there’s nothing wrong with it.
Oh yeah, atrocities we committed on them. Supporting their exponential population growth. All the aid we send them. 60% of their population children? And growing.
Damn. We really committed atrocities toward them. How dare we send them billions and billions in aid. They fucked and fucked and partied so hard from such horrendous atrocities.
Ohh no. Did they fail to raise an army and go to war?
Anyways let’s debunk this crap. There was no Palestine in 1946 Palestine before 1946 was Arabs. The green in 1946 represents a million arabs living there and the white represents half a million Jews. Your map leaves out the British mandate land given to those Arabs of that time. That land known as Jordan today with 70% Arab Palestine descent.
Your last map is pure bullshit. Their population has swelled in numbers since 1946 from 100k population to 5 millions? Yet it portrays an ethnic cleansing? Riiiiiight.
Your 2nd map was the two state proposal offered in 1947 which the Arabs declined and proceeded to try and destroy Israel off the map in 1948.
Your third map is the consequences of them wanting to destroy Israel imo but whatever something something atrocities something something no partition plan no Israel.
You say that like the destruction of an ethnostate is a bad thing.
The destruction of Israel does not mean the destruction of Jews, Jews; Muslims, and Christians lived in Palestine under the ottoman empire, before Balfour decided to kill 2 birds with one stone, and both remove most Jews from Britain (the dude was very explicitly antisemitic) and acquire a colony.
There are like 20 Arab ethnostates. Israel isn’t an ethnostate anyways. They have a large amount of citizens that are not Jewish. If they are then there are many many countries you may be inclined to destroy as well.
Seems like you got a lot of work to do cleansing this world of ethnostates. Good luck with it! /S
Lancet is literally one of the most, if not the most, prestigious medical journal in the world.
If you don’t believe the actual medical journal then you’re lost. Plus Israel has bombed Gaza so much that they have destroyed all the hospitals and record keeping facilities. In addition, the US government passed a bill limiting publications from talking about the death toll. www.commondreams.org/…/genocide-denial-congress
On top of that, Israel has dropped a minimum of 300 bombs per day on Gaza since October 8th. If each bomb only killed one person, we would have a death toll of 300 per day x approximately 300 days is 90,000.
You do not seem to understand how peer review let alone scientific research works and what kind of rigor is required to get your research published in an A* journal and I’ll leave it at that.
Because that’s… not the estimate that the most accurate process they can come up with leads to?
This sorta reminds me of conversations I’ve had with Trump supporters, where the very idea that you could evaluate a source and one could be more believable than another for reasons other than ideology, (like that one is trying to get the truth and one isn’t), is alien to them.
I mean this person has absolutely no idea what they’re talking about if they think journalists publish in The Lancet just because it’s called a journal so I think any discussion is absolutely pointless.
I don’t understand why some people think that the death count is 40K. That number was made by the Palestinian health ministry and they are very accurate… but it wasn’t updated because all their facilities have been destroyed. They act like somehow it stopped there just like that.
The lancet is not fucking around with their numbers.