The USA and Israel

[accelafine]

So a person dies of a heart attack and you think that hilarious.
What a wanker !

Yep. I don't care about psychopahtic old cun ts who applaud the torture of children. He had an easy death. Why the f would I give a shit about that?

But you are okay with 4000 Palestinian children?
Because, what, they are just animals?

You mean those children killed by your heroes, Hamas? Of course not. Are you? Why are you pretending to care about 'any' children? You obviously hate children.

[accelafine]

A 'marxist' defending and idolising billionaire warmongering arms dealers. The irony never ends.

[Sculptor]

There would be. But it wouldn't be easy to say how you'd do it with any equity, or with any chance of success.

Hamas killed 1400 innocent civilians...men, women, children, babies, grandmothers...with rape, torture, disembowling, burning, shooting...and still has 240 innocent civilian hostages -- or maybe only 238, since two more were found dead today. And they're still shooting rockets, and trying to kill the Israelis. Meanwhile, they throw their own people into harm's way in order to protect themselves, and shoot their own civilians when they heed Israeli warnings and try to leave the danger areas.

So if you can tell Israel how to deal with these people, who have sworn to die killing Jews and will kill themselves and all their own people in a heartbeat, so that Israel can deal with them in a more humane way, I'm sure Israel will listen. For it does not serve Israeli interests to be involved in civilian deaths of either side, and Israel would gladly solve their problem with no further loss of civilian life.

So what do you want them to do, that Hamas will allow them to do?

Perhaps you are right. Hamas has demonstrated that it is beyond the point where other human beings can reason with them. Unfortunately, civilians that they are hiding among are caught in the line of fire.

Only because Hamas is holding them there. It was never by accident that they build their terrorist infrastructure directly under hospitals, schools and mosques...it was strategic. They were daring Israel to come after them, at the extreme peril of Palestinian civilian lives. And when Hamas butchered 1400 innocent citizens of Israel, they were forcing Israel's hand.

The whole things has been staged and orchestrated by Hamas.

But funded by Netanyahu.
Forewarned by Egypt but ignored.
And fronted reduced resistence at the border with autmatic defences switched off.

Just the excuse he needed to lay waste thousands of homes and to slaughter 20,000 civilians.
Civilans whose remaining children will grow up in the same prison, with limited options excpet to joine Hams to take revenge against Jews.
And so the cycle ot violence that benefits Netanyahu is reaborn in each generation.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/for-years ... our-faces/

https://www.jpost.com/Arab-Israeli-Conf ... ded-583082

[accelafine]

'Skulptor', the wannabe 'marxist' who believes any conspiracy theory that supports his repulsive agenda. Keep trying, freakshow.

[Alexis Jacobi]

Wow. Looks like a good explanation from Immanuel Can can also effectively persuade the once unpersuadable Gary Childress. What's next? Gary telling us that God is good?

Unhappily, Immanuel Can does not have any good explanations. What he has mostly are lies, distortions and self-deceptions, and I would suggest that you as well share many of these. But not because either of you have employed sound methods of analysis, or realistic methods of examination. You seem stuck within a strange hall of distorting mirrors.

It is important that someone state, and I have stated it, that the ideas and the vision that drives IC's opinions about Israel all derive from a Christian Zionist stance. It is deeply bound up in applied hallucinations. That stance has been driving politics in the region for decades. The Christian Zionist aids and abets the Israelis who, by the way, hold Christian believers in absolute contempt. It is a relationship of real spiritual sickness. No good can come from any of this and indeed no good has come from it. There seems to be a strange fatality operating in it. Will it eventually calm down again or will it, as is predicted by dystopian visions eventually explode into something really ugly and really consequential? It remains to be seen.

It is horrifying to realize that decades of *support* for Israel have helped bring about the tragic on-going situation and conditions.

But no one of you has the moral strength to self-examine yourselves. You are like dysfunctional intellectual drunkards. What would sobriety mean for you? How would it be attained? I have no idea.

In my view Gary has nothing at all to contribute in any sense to an understanding of the politics of the region. Everything for Gary hinges back into his subjective feelings.

But here is the actual truth, at least as I see it: Gary sees a world in its realistic form. It is a violent, determined system in which there is certainly no good God operating. I am speaking about the biological and geological world. It is a system in which living things are forced to consume other living beings in what is, in reality, a terrifyingly strange system of ecological relationships. It is a giant, circulating energy system and of life composting life.

That is the reality of life here.

What "God" is is really a whole other question. The God of the biological/geological world can only be a strange demigod or even a demon-like creature. That much is clear.

The gods that are visualized as *existing* are extra-metaphysical entities. Perhaps they could be catalogued as *psychoid* (having some sort of non-physical psychoid reality -- but that is a Jungian position). Yet it seems they can only be conceived of by metaphysical creatures like man. Insofar as these entities, visualized as they are, can impinge on reality, they do so through men. Therefore the *work* (spiritual work) is always internal.

[Immanuel Can]

Just the excuse he needed to lay waste thousands of homes and to slaughter 20,000 civilians.

Well, come on, now. NOBODY says the causalty figures are even close to that high. You're doing drama.

Hamas is not merely providing the "excuse", as if somebody wanted this to happen other than Hamas: they're forcing it to happen. They won't let it NOT happen.

If they had fired no rockets, and butchered no civilians, or not built terrorists infrastructure under hospitals, or allowed civilians to get out of harm's way, or not kidnapped people, or would just surrender even now...then none of this would be happening.

It's all on Hamas. If you blame anybody else, you're complicit in their murderous strategizing, which kills not merely Israelis but their own people.

[Sculptor]

Just the excuse he needed to lay waste thousands of homes and to slaughter 20,000 civilians.

Well, come on, now. NOBODY says the causalty figures are even close to that high. You're doing drama.

You are as blind as a bat.

Now tell me how killing ONE child is not immoral

[Alexis Jacobi]

The Wiki page on war casualties, if it can be trusted (sometimes yes, sometimes no):

On 7 October 2023, more than 1,200 Israelis and foreign nationals, mostly civilians, were killed and 248 taken hostage during the initial attack on Israel from the Gaza Strip.[1][2]

As of 10 December, over 19,000 Palestinians and Israelis in all have been killed in the Israel–Hamas war, including 63 journalists (56 Palestinian, 4 Israeli and 3 Lebanese) and over 100 UNRWA aid workers. Over 17,700 Palestinians (the majority of whom were women and children) in the Gaza Strip have been killed according to the Gaza Health Ministry. A further 248 Palestinians were also killed in the West Bank by Israel military and settlers, and nine Israelis have been killed by Palestinians in the West Bank in the same period. Casualties have also occurred in other parts of Israel, in southern Lebanon, and Syria. The casualties of the 2023 Israel–Hamas war include combatants and civilians from Israel, Palestine, and numerous other nations.

[Dontaskme]

Isrealis accidentally kill 3 Isrealis hostages.

If the world was a movie. It would be too X rated to be released upon an audience.

[Immanuel Can]

Just the excuse he needed to lay waste thousands of homes and to slaughter 20,000 civilians.

Well, come on, now. NOBODY says the causalty figures are even close to that high. You're doing drama.

You are as blind as a bat.

Really?

So now you're going to argue that, in its attempt to weed out Hamas, who killed 1,400 innocent civilians, and still holds 238 captive, that the IDF has killed 20,000 civilians for fun? None have been killed by Hamas, even by its provocation of the war and its insistence on killing Jews? And Hamas is not culpable for what it did with the hospitals, schools and mosques, or for shooting its own people when they tried to flee, and that Israel wanted all this all along, though it works against them in terms of international image?

And Hamas didn't want any of this? And it would be unreasonable to ask such wonderful humanitarians as Hamas to lay down their arms and stop killing civilians, because they're actually freedom fighters who can be trusted to accept a peace brokered on their behalf?

This is what you want to believe, and to convince others to think?

Good luck.

[accelafine]

Just the excuse he needed to lay waste thousands of homes and to slaughter 20,000 civilians.

Well, come on, now. NOBODY says the causalty figures are even close to that high. You're doing drama.

You are as blind as a bat.

Now tell me how killing ONE child is not immoral

But you believe that killing them is ok, as long as they are slowly tortured beforehand (and as long as they are Jewish). Got it.

[Alexis Jacobi]

So now you're going to argue that, in its attempt to weed out Hamas, who killed 1,400 innocent civilians, and still holds 238 captive, that the IDF has killed 20,000 civilians for fun? None have been killed by Hamas, even by its provocation of the war and its insistence on killing Jews? And Hamas is not culpable for what it did with the hospitals, schools and mosques, or for shooting its own people when they tried to flee, and that Israel wanted all this all along, though it works against them in terms of international image?

And Hamas didn't want any of this? And it would be unreasonable to ask such wonderful humanitarians as Hamas to lay down their arms and stop killing civilians, because they're actually freedom fighters who can be trusted to accept a peace brokered on their behalf?

The way I look at it is that Hamas, and all Palestinian resistance fighters, and any people who fight similar struggles anywhere in the world, have a right to do so. I recognize their right even if I might not support their ends. In this sense I can say I respect them. And I also believe that Israel is ultimately responsible for the trouble it finds itself in. I am sure you did not watch the video of Miko Peled (son of general who fought in 48) and his views on the Palestinian struggle, but he put it into easy to understand and coherent terms. Israel is the real aggressor. And the harm done by Israel is far in excess of the harm done to it by 1,000 times.

I interpret the Hamas attack in various ways. One as a brilliant and successful military operation against a people who defines itself as militarized and each citizen as a soldier. Were war crimes committed? Definitely. Do those crimes reduce the core right of Palestinians to fight? No. Were they strategically intelligent? Very much so.

Does Israel have no right to attack back? Of course they do. Do they have a right to kill so many and so disproportionately? The way I look at that is to say that no matter what happens Israel will not be able to live this down. That means that they are committing a severe strategic and tactical error. The nature of guerrilla operations is to draw the enemy into traps of this sort. And Israel is getting pulled into a trap. I cannot predict the future but what is happening now in Israeli society will tear the social and political fabric irreparably. So the Hamas attack is having that effect as well. And since Hamas declared Israel its mortal enemy what it set out to achieve is being achieved.

What can Israel realistically do? It can neither retreat nor can it go forward. And that is exactly what guerrilla strategies leverage against their far superior enemies. It is one of their major weapons. Anyone who has studied guerrilla war tactics knows this.

Another tactic of guerrilla warfare is, of course, to hide among the civilian population. And to be supported by the civilian population. It would not surprise me if Hamas did hide munitions near hospitals or schools. Do I condemn them for that? No. Their enemy is infinitely more powerful. It has all the weapons and controls every aspect of life in that strip. In fighting against such an enemy they only have access to guerrilla tactics. So guerrilla strategy is employed. To bring up the issue of *culpability* is rather stupid considering the imbalance in the situation. For Palestinians, given their metaphysics to be a martyr has glory attached to it. Just as we revere those who died in our wars and see them as heroic, so too do they.

Ultimately, a people in rebellion against an aggressor and an occupier pay for their resistance with their own bodies -- men, women and children. That is a simple statement of fact.

By establishing the Israeli state on the dispossession of a people living in the region Israel *made its own bed*. A simple, inalterable fact. A truism. Why did *they* (the ruling and determining elites) set things up in this way? The chickens always come home to roost. Unless of course you can utterly wipe out the henhouse and destroy even the hen's memory. The founding of Israel under these conditions, and of course Zionism itself, were recognized long before the establishment of the state as being deeply problematic. The writing was already on the wall. Much of this was predicted.

Israel has been a curse in the region and for all the people in the region. Nothing good has come from this. All the recent wars that the US engaged in, with such destructive cost to the people in each warred-on country, and a psychic cost to those who fought these wars, is substantially the fault of Israel. Israel has manipulated the US in a most Machiavellian way -- that is if the reports and interpretations of Israeli influence is to be believed. These things must be seen for what they are. And everyone should know about it. Everyone should recognize how destructive Israel's establishment has been. In any case that is my view.

My endeavor is to see things clearly but I do not make policy suggestions. The first step is always to see clearly, no? I believe that what I have said here is accurate. But how can I be completely certain?

[Alexis Jacobi]

An interesting NYTs article (I copied it since many don't have a subscription to the Times):

Chen Goldstein-Almog, who, along with her three surviving children, was among the hostages released by Hamas in exchange for the release of prisoners by Israel in November.

The strangest part of her seven-week ordeal, said Chen Goldstein-Almog, formerly an Israeli hostage of Hamas, were the long, almost intimate conversations she had with her captors.

They talked about their families, their lives and the extreme danger they all faced.

One of the gunmen holding her even apologized for the killing of her husband and one of her daughters by other Hamas gunmen, she said.

“It was a mistake and against the Quran,” he told her, Ms. Goldstein-Almog remembered.

She said a long silence followed, and the room she and three of her children were being held in immediately filled with tension.

“I didn’t respond,” she said. She was distraught about their deaths, but at that moment, she said, “I didn’t feel I could express any negative feelings.”

Ms. Goldstein-Almog, 48, and the three children were kidnapped on Oct. 7 from the Kfar Aza kibbutz, near the border of Gaza and one of the worst hit during the Hamas terrorist attacks. Her husband and eldest daughter were killed.

She and the surviving children — another daughter, Agam, 17, and two sons, Gal, 11, and Tal, 9 — were released in late November as part of the exchange of prisoners between Israel and Hamas that has since ceased.

In an interview this week, she shared details about her ordeal.

She said she and the children were held together, treated “respectfully” and not physically harmed. But she said that over the course of various moves during their captivity, she had met other hostages who were badly treated, including two women who said they were sexually abused.

Mostly, they were held in a room in an apartment in Gaza, she said, with the windows closed except for a bit of fresh air in the early mornings. But the heavily armed captors also moved Ms. Goldstein-Almog and her children to different apartments, tunnels, a mosque, even a destroyed supermarket, she said.

With the Israeli military pounding Gaza, each transfer was terrifying, and the men holding them, she said, didn’t always seem to know what to do.

Describing one move, she said: “It was the middle of the night. Everything was dark. They started deliberating among themselves. I could see the helplessness on their faces.”

“When we were out into the street, in total darkness, there was a shot above us,” she continued. “We were pressed against the wall, and I could see a laser pointer, as if we were being targeted from above.”

And she was thinking: That’s our air force up there.

“It was crazy,” she said, “this absurdity.”

Her conversations with her guards sometimes went on for hours, she said, maybe because she was once a social worker and knew how to keep someone in a long, deep conversation — her only way of trying to make sure, she said, that she and the children would be safe.

The guards taught her son Gal 250 words in Arabic to keep him occupied and brought him a notebook to study. She said the family and the guards regularly discussed what to eat. Most days they survived off pita bread with cheese, usually feta. In the early days there were also a few vegetables. She said the guards told her they were members of Hamas.

The lead guard seemed educated and spoke Hebrew, she said. In the apartment where they stayed the longest, he sometimes invited the family to join in cooking in the kitchen, though even in these moments, the guards carried pistols. The guards would escort them to the bathroom on request, and allowed them to sleep.

Each member of the family had emotional ups and downs. Sometimes they would talk about what happened on Oct. 7, or would realize no cease-fire was near. The captors didn’t like it when the children cried, she said. They asked immediately for them to stop.

“And if for a moment, I would sit and sink in my thoughts,” she said, the lead captor “would directly ask me what I was thinking. I couldn’t move from room to room without an armed guard accompanying me. Once, my two sons were arguing, and the guard raised his voice at one of them, which was scary.”

There were even moments when the guards cried in front of them, she said, worried about their own families.

“We were in daily danger,” she said. “It was fear at a level we didn’t know existed.”

She couldn’t stop replaying the death of her husband, Nadav, 48, whom she started dating in high school and who was killed in front of their eyes along with their oldest daughter, Yam, 20, a soldier just two months from the end of her service.

At the end of their captivity, the lead guard turned to Ms. Goldstein-Almog and gave her a warning: Don’t go back to your kibbutz, he said. Don’t return to a place so close to Gaza. Go to Tel Aviv or somewhere farther north, she remembers him saying. Because we are coming back.

Ms. Goldstein-Almog’s response?

“Next time you come,” she said she told them, “don’t throw a grenade. Just knock on the door.”

[vegetariantaxidermy]

For fuck sake

[Immanuel Can]

The way I look at it is that Hamas, and all Palestinian resistance fighters,...

That's one really, really dumb way to look at things.

What they are is an Islamic terrorist racist organization, bent on ethnic "cleansing" of Israel, and that without any moral boundaries at all. That much, they've clearly demonstrated.

They kill babies. They rape women. They have no regard for civilians, even their own. And they will not quit. So there's not much that can be done with uninhibited, psychopathic, genocidal murderers.