Serious The Politics Thread

[Eroil]

Ironic because zionists literally do not believe palestinians are people but go off i guess
https://mondoweiss.net/2023/03/pale...-many-jewish-israelis-approve-settler-pogrom/

Generalization, but I have never said once in my posts that such actions or ideas are any better to me (they are not). Equally as flawed and equally as problematic. I have never once here said anything that the Israeli government has done since the October 7th attacks isn't very problematic (they are). I am pointing the fact that people in this thread generally believe in the same ideas that would bring Zionists and Palestinian Nationalists alike to believe that killing is just.

Hey so if you were to ask a person on this forum how they feel about competitive Pokémon the responses would pretty much exclusively be positive right? Maybe you'll have some old timers who retired a while ago talk shit but every single person on this forum will have at least some level of fondness or nostalgia for comp Pokes. If you were to start a topic here saying competitive Pokémon is bad, everyone should play Overwatch instead well... you might get some sympathetic responses but overwhelmingly your points, regardless of valid or not, would be in such an extreme minority that people wouldn't even pay attention. It would be a waste of your time to argue that people here should play Overwatch over Pokémon. Probably close to 100% of the people here reading this have already decided Pokémon > Overwatch.

Now what if you were to poll random people in the US. Statistically speaking Overwatch has similar eSport attention and more prize money than what VGC gets (and Smogon seems to get even less). Overwatch is, to the average person, just a more appealing game for pvp. However whatever perks and benefits there is to playing Overwatch competitively, no matter how long you write paragraphs, no matter how valid you consider your points, you will never convince anyone here that Overwatch is better than Smogon. This is just not a reasonable place to make those kinds of arguments, even though globally Overwatch pvp is just as popular as Pokémon.

What does this have to do with anything? This forum is made up of mostly Gen Z with a handful of bitter old Millennials scattered in. People in this demographic are left leaning, and the particular bunch here are the tech-savvy anime watching art making nerds who somehow decided that min-maxing a Pikachu's EVs is actually a valid use of their time. This group is almost universally far left leaning, evidence being the literal zero Republicans or even moderates who post here.

So I'll address the elephant in the room. If your views on Palestine / Israel is anything other than "Israel = nazi genocide bad and Palestine = innocent of everything" it is an absolute waste of time to post here. You will be outnumbered ten to one and really you'll just get locked in endless wall of text battles with people who have zero intention of good faith discussion. If you want to have serious debates about the Israel Palestine issue, there are infinitely better places to do so. Save yourself the energy here and relax. This is a tiny forum and this topic is made up of like 15 people, probably 3-4 of them are 90% of the posts. None of this matters. You'll never "post hard enough" to convince people here your posts are valid so imo you're better off not wasting the time.

While I don't think the way in which you've explained your points is much better when in comes to the amount of judgements and name calling when compared to a lot of the other posts here, I do agree with the sentiment. This is not a place that accepts views that oppose the majority. I intended to stop posting before as it has been made fairly clear to me that this thread will only cause to more stress and negativity for me.

Regardless it did help me understand the general mentality that a lot of people hold better, so I will thank people for that.

 

[S.A.C. Martin]

Oh gosh you're so angry.

I am 100% sure having a conversation with you on Palestine has absolutely zero merit. You, yourself, must be well aware that anything a person posts besides "Israel genocidal and bad" is just an excuse for you to wall-of-text why they're wrong right? Like you exist here merely to tell others to think like you, not to actually trade facts and evidence and have a political discussion. Here on Smogon it's almost universally pro-Palestine, to the point where people will defend slaughter of civilians

Here we go, usual lies being spouted. Who said it was okay to slaughter civilians? I want names, I want date stamps, I want posts.

Come on, show us who defended that?

What a number of people have pointed out, which you may or may not have the intellectual capacity to understand (but do try) is that an oppressed people or state have the right to resistance against their oppressor under international law.

But in the real world it is actually possible to have constructive conversations where you discuss the failure of both sides to reach an agreement, where you can condemn the genocidal actions of Israel while condemning the civilian atrocities committed by Hamas.

That has not been my lived experience. My lived experience is literally “why have 41,000 people died and how do we stop this”, shortly followed by someone saying “but what about Hamas”

The balance of civilian atrocities that has been committed by Israel and the IDF now outnumber the Hamas atrocities roughly 1200 to 41,000, and that’s just people who are dead.

We have at time of speaking the following things that Israel and the IDF are known to have done by way of bombing and drone strikes:

• 2.3 million people displaced
• Over 80% of civilian infrastructure destroyed
• Every university destroyed
• Every school damaged or destroyed
• Every Mosque damaged or destroyed
• Every Church damaged or destroyed
• Every water well in the north and central Gaza, destroyed
• Most water treatment facilities, destroyed
• Over 80% of the farmland, desolate due to bombing
• Every hospital either totally ransacked and destroyed, or out of commission, or barely functioning
• Destroyed almost all ambulances
• Destroyed electricity plants
• Destroyed roads
• Destroyed housing, literally bulldozing peoples homes and repeatedly destroying with missile and air strikes high rise buildings and more
• Most sewage systems destroyed, leaving to stagnant water and disease becoming rife

This is on top of:

• Sniping children
• Shooting unarmed civilians
• Running over civilian corpses with bulldozers
• Possible mass executions of civilians

I haven‘t even got to:

• Deadliest war for journalists this century (134)
• Deadliest war for doctors (over 500)
• Deadliest war for UN staff (over 200)

Nor have I got to:

• Shooting dead three freed hostages who were clearly unarmed
• Multiple - if not hundreds - of examples of firing at aid convoys and humanitarian aid groups
• Killing aid workers despite them following the deconfliction protocols the IDF put in place
• Repeatedly and continuously displacing people to “safe zones” - then bombing the safe zones

Nor have I managed to get to:

• Starvation as a weapon of war through blocking every single crossing
• stopping aid convoys from getting through
• Deliberately blocking whole aid shipments due to specific items classed as “dual use” (which at one point included scissors for cutting bandages and similar)
• Vaccinating the IDF troops on the ground against Polio, but now after a week of enormous effort to vaccinate Gaza’s children in the north, have prevented the programme continuing in the south

Like, the list of atrocities and war crimes that are not just reported, we have physical footage of the IDF doing this, we have the IDF confirming they did some of this, and….! That’s still not everything!

• IDF soldiers posing in women’s underwear for their social media
• IDF soldiers filming demolitions of schools, universities and homes and cheering
• IDF soldiers filming themselves literally ransacking peoples homes and possessions
• IDF soldiers being recorded on camera raping Palestinian prisoners

And guess what…we still aren’t done!

I am not feeling great reading all of that back, but it’s literally out there. Over 300 days of war crimes that just keep going and going, and going.

You can even talk about a realistic path to peace.

Where is this elusive path to peace? Certainly nowhere near the Israelis, who have just about exhausted everyone at the United Nations (except the United States, who are both mediating and funding the war. Couldn’t make it up).

No, you can’t talk about peace if you are equating Hamas with Israel. Hamas, for sure, conducted acts of terrorism that killed people. They form part of a country that has been under occupation and apartheid for 76 years.

No, you definitely can’t equate them with Israel. Their list of war crimes is now so small as to look ridiculous when people go “what about October 7th?”

Like, people, the Palestinians have an October 7th virtually every week.

But here on this forum? There is no room for that kind of talk.

Here’s a thought: maybe because the people who are angry at Israel, might, just might, have a bit of humanity left that is horrified at the prospect of being complicit through their tax dollars and tax pounds to a literal genocide in their lifetimes. Just a thought.

Even just sheepishly saying "Hamas attacking a music festival isn't okay" has to be toned down with "but I'm not supporting Israel!!" because this topic is such an absurd hot button that people will jump at the throats of anyone who tries to constructively criticize literal terrorism.

I mean how many times have you heard “do you condemn Hamas” whenever anyone on social media or American television has asked about or pointed out Israeli atrocities being committed?

And I’m looking at the lists above. Sorry, forgive me, but which group are the terrorists?

The group which has bombed an entire country to the stone age…like their officials repeatedly said they would, or the group with ak47s and improvised weapons who got lucky on one day, carried out some despicable acts after suffering, like everyone within Gaza, decades of Israeli oppression, abuse and violence.

And the best thing about all of this? Somehow we are all meant to be alright with watching people get murdered, daily, live, for our viewing pleasure!

God - give me strength.

 

[MrHands]

Your point is that the rhetoric is accepted in this thread, not that it exists. You’ve proven the latter, but not the former.

I think any sort of post that literally says "killing civilians is okay" were deleted or just common sense not posted, but we just had a whole ass conversation discussing whether or not Native Americans attacking colonies was an acceptable form of self defense in comparison to Palestine so there's clearly a rhetoric that this is acceptable in the modern day if the defender has no better options. There are plenty of posts here excusing Hamas firing rockets at civilian infrastructure and denial of them being a terrorist organization.

Also yes I'm lazily using Lilyhollow as a scapegoat.

Can we reach a full page of analyzing MrHands one argument and whether or not it was fulfilled

Only like 4 more posts to go.

Here we go, usual lies being spouted. Who said it was okay to slaughter civilians? I want names, I want date stamps, I want posts.

Come on, show us who defended that?

What a number of people have pointed out, which you may or may not have the intellectual capacity to understand (but do try) is that an oppressed people or state have the right to resistance against their oppressor under international law.

You literally just tried to explain that Hamas's actions are self defense. No I'm sorry gunning down people at a music festival is not protected under international law in any way.

 

[S.A.C. Martin]

You literally just tried to explain that Hamas's actions are self defense. No I'm sorry gunning down people at a music festival is not protected under international law in any way.

Right, but you’re pointing out that whilst not condemning the use of rape against prisoners by the IDF, or indiscriminate bombing by the IDF, or starvation being used as a weapon of war by the IDF, etc etc…

See, we can do this whataboutery lark too. We have waaaaaaaay more material on this side of the debate to throw back at you than you have to us!

 

[MrHands]

Right, but you’re pointing out that whilst not condemning the use of rape against prisoners by the IDF, or indiscriminate bombing by the IDF, or starvation being used as a weapon of war by the IDF, etc etc…

See, we can do this whataboutery lark too. We have waaaaaaaay more material on this side of the debate to throw back at you than you have to us!

I condemn the use of rape against prisoners by the IDF, or indiscriminate bombing by the IDF, or starvation being used as a weapon of war by the IDF.

I also think shooting people at a music festival is really bad.

 

[Chou Toshio]

The point is they’re wrong that apologies for violence is defended broadly in this thread. It’s not— and they’ve failed to prove their assertion it is. Most leftists acknowledge the violence from Hamas, from historic and extant Muslim groups.

But leftists have an understanding rooted in history, in material conditions, and keen focus on the holding, exercise, and balance of power. That is to say that unlike idealist liberals, but very much like most normal people watching a fight between a 4 year old and a 10 year old— we’re able to view actions in light of who holds greater responsibility.

 

[S.A.C. Martin]

I condemn the use of rape against prisoners by the IDF, or indiscriminate bombing by the IDF, or starvation being used as a weapon of war by the IDF.

I also think shooting people at a music festival is really bad.

Great, welcome to adulthood.

Note that in the 10 months preceding October 7, 2023, it was a really deadly year to be a Palestinian in Palestine.

https://www.ochaopt.org/data/casualties

Note that in 2012, four Palestinians were killed by being set on fire (settler violence). There’s other ways Palestinians were murdered too.

The strength of the outrage over October 7th, which both numerically and in terms of its relative importance to the full history of the reason, is far less than anything done by the Israelis on the Palestinians, and the lack of outrage and condemnation for the Israeli’s actions is breathtaking.

Oh - and yes, we want all of the hostages released of course. Both the Israeli ones in Gaza and the literal thousands held without charge in Israeli jails.

There you go, balance. I mentioned both sides and I want both sides released.

And for balance, let’s see that ceasefire, huh? Maybe Israel could stop bombing for a few weeks so independent assessors of the United Nations can investigate Gaza and the West Bank? Hmmm?

 

[MrHands]

Great, welcome to adulthood.

Note that in the 10 months preceding October 7, 2023, it was a really deadly year to be a Palestinian in Palestine.

https://www.ochaopt.org/data/casualties

Note that in 2012, four Palestinians were killed by being set on fire (settler violence). There’s other ways Palestinians were murdered too.

The strength of the outrage over October 7th, which both numerically and in terms of its relative importance to the full history of the reason, is far less than anything done by the Israelis on the Palestinians, and the lack of outrage and condemnation for the Israeli’s actions is breathtaking.

Oh - and yes, we want all of the hostages released of course. Both the Israeli ones in Gaza and the literal thousands held without charge in Israeli jails.

There you go, balance. I mentioned both sides and I want both sides released.

And for balance, let’s see that ceasefire, huh? Maybe Israel could stop bombing for a few weeks so independent assessors of the United Nations can investigate Gaza and the West Bank? Hmmm?

Do you condemn the attacks on civilians on Oct 7th yes or no.

 

[SittinGamer]

Do you condemn the attacks on civilians on Oct 7th yes or no.

This is very funny given the post quite literally one above when you inserted yourself into this part of the conversation is Dead by Daylight condemning the attacks on civillians by Hamas.

 

[MrHands]

you inserted yourself into this part of the conversation

I'm replying to a comment I was quoted in lmao

 

[SittinGamer]

Your point has been that this thread is a monolith of terrorism apologia where anyone that even mentions Hamas kills citizens is socially ostracized. To that end, we have pointed out that your singular cited example is poor, whether that be due to admitted laziness or not. Additionally, it has been pointed out that, when you inserted yourself into the thread (this was not you being quoted, it was you choosing to reply to Eroli* about the groupthink here,) the post ONE ABOVE YOURS was condemnation of the killing of civilians by Hamas.

 

[Blue glass]

There is this post by S.A.C. Martin where they acknowledge that a liberation movement can commit terrorists acts. That seems pretty nuanced despite declarations that we all are rabid supporters that don't listen to contrary opinions.

 

[Grey Waves]

Here we go, usual lies being spouted. Who said it was okay to slaughter civilians? I want names, I want date stamps, I want posts.

Come on, show us who defended that?

What a number of people have pointed out, which you may or may not have the intellectual capacity to understand (but do try) is that an oppressed people or state have the right to resistance against their oppressor under international law.



That has not been my lived experience. My lived experience is literally “why have 41,000 people died and how do we stop this”, shortly followed by someone saying “but what about Hamas”

The balance of civilian atrocities that has been committed by Israel and the IDF now outnumber the Hamas atrocities roughly 1200 to 41,000, and that’s just people who are dead.

We have at time of speaking the following things that Israel and the IDF are known to have done by way of bombing and drone strikes:

• 2.3 million people displaced
• Over 80% of civilian infrastructure destroyed
• Every university destroyed
• Every school damaged or destroyed
• Every Mosque damaged or destroyed
• Every Church damaged or destroyed
• Every water well in the north and central Gaza, destroyed
• Most water treatment facilities, destroyed
• Over 80% of the farmland, desolate due to bombing
• Every hospital either totally ransacked and destroyed, or out of commission, or barely functioning
• Destroyed almost all ambulances
• Destroyed electricity plants
• Destroyed roads
• Destroyed housing, literally bulldozing peoples homes and repeatedly destroying with missile and air strikes high rise buildings and more
• Most sewage systems destroyed, leaving to stagnant water and disease becoming rife

This is on top of:

• Sniping children
• Shooting unarmed civilians
• Running over civilian corpses with bulldozers
• Possible mass executions of civilians

I haven‘t even got to:

• Deadliest war for journalists this century (134)
• Deadliest war for doctors (over 500)
• Deadliest war for UN staff (over 200)

Nor have I got to:

• Shooting dead three freed hostages who were clearly unarmed
• Multiple - if not hundreds - of examples of firing at aid convoys and humanitarian aid groups
• Killing aid workers despite them following the deconfliction protocols the IDF put in place
• Repeatedly and continuously displacing people to “safe zones” - then bombing the safe zones

Nor have I managed to get to:

• Starvation as a weapon of war through blocking every single crossing
• stopping aid convoys from getting through
• Deliberately blocking whole aid shipments due to specific items classed as “dual use” (which at one point included scissors for cutting bandages and similar)
• Vaccinating the IDF troops on the ground against Polio, but now after a week of enormous effort to vaccinate Gaza’s children in the north, have prevented the programme continuing in the south

Like, the list of atrocities and war crimes that are not just reported, we have physical footage of the IDF doing this, we have the IDF confirming they did some of this, and….! That’s still not everything!

• IDF soldiers posing in women’s underwear for their social media
• IDF soldiers filming demolitions of schools, universities and homes and cheering
• IDF soldiers filming themselves literally ransacking peoples homes and possessions
• IDF soldiers being recorded on camera raping Palestinian prisoners

And guess what…we still aren’t done!

I am not feeling great reading all of that back, but it’s literally out there. Over 300 days of war crimes that just keep going and going, and going.



Where is this elusive path to peace? Certainly nowhere near the Israelis, who have just about exhausted everyone at the United Nations (except the United States, who are both mediating and funding the war. Couldn’t make it up).

No, you can’t talk about peace if you are equating Hamas with Israel. Hamas, for sure, conducted acts of terrorism that killed people. They form part of a country that has been under occupation and apartheid for 76 years.

No, you definitely can’t equate them with Israel. Their list of war crimes is now so small as to look ridiculous when people go “what about October 7th?”

Like, people, the Palestinians have an October 7th virtually every week.



Here’s a thought: maybe because the people who are angry at Israel, might, just might, have a bit of humanity left that is horrified at the prospect of being complicit through their tax dollars and tax pounds to a literal genocide in their lifetimes. Just a thought.



I mean how many times have you heard “do you condemn Hamas” whenever anyone on social media or American television has asked about or pointed out Israeli atrocities being committed?

And I’m looking at the lists above. Sorry, forgive me, but which group are the terrorists?

The group which has bombed an entire country to the stone age…like their officials repeatedly said they would, or the group with ak47s and improvised weapons who got lucky on one day, carried out some despicable acts after suffering, like everyone within Gaza, decades of Israeli oppression, abuse and violence.

And the best thing about all of this? Somehow we are all meant to be alright with watching people get murdered, daily, live, for our viewing pleasure!

God - give me strength.

Something I think you're overlooking when you compare the raw numbers like this is that Hamas and Israel are nowhere nearly matched in terms of resources, both militarily and otherwise. Hamas was only able to kill ~ 1200 people in the attacks on October 7th (and weren't able to cause any humanitarian issues the likes of which Israel is doing) because they simply did not have the military power for a bigger operation. I think it's worth noting that if both sides were more similar in terms of weaponry, numbers, funding etc. rather than the current situation where it's more akin to a house cat fighting a lion, then that list you've created would be far, far more even.

Sorry, forgive me, but which group are the terrorists?

The answer is both. While the scale of the atrocities committed by the Israeli government are far greater than what Hamas has done, the October 7 attacks combined with all the suicide bombings and rocket attacks that have been committed by Hamas over the previous however many years have firmly proved that Hamas is a terrorist organisation too. I'm not claiming that both sides are 100% equally as bad as each other. However, both are fundamentally in the wrong, and it's just as correct to label the Israeli government a terrorist organisation as it is Hamas even if the scale of one side's acts are significantly greater than that of the other's.

 

[Sabelette]

The both sides people have arrived to equivocate what a theoretical hamas might do with what a very real zionist entity is actually doing

"actually if indigenous people in the Americas had had guns they would have genocided the white people"
"actually if the Algerians had had better resources they would have murdered every French person and invaded France"

The colonized are never even a fraction as brutal as the colonizer. Never. It never goes this way. You people make up hypotheticals to justify your fencesitting.

Edit: imagine being enough of a loser to sit in a thread you got banned from months ago "haha"ing all my posts because you can't harass me directly anymore. I wonder why you do that to me, boo, and not anyone else with similar opinions to mine... hmmmmm...

 

[S.A.C. Martin]

Do you condemn the attacks on civilians on Oct 7th yes or no.

Yes, have done repeatedly in this thread, have also pointed out that the nuances of international law need to be taken into account.

Do you condemn Israel’s apartheid regime and their ongoing genocide against the Palestinian people?

 

[S.A.C. Martin]

Something I think you're overlooking when you compare the raw numbers like this is that Hamas and Israel are nowhere nearly matched in terms of resources, both militarily and otherwise. Hamas was only able to kill ~ 1200 people in the attacks on October 7th (and weren't able to cause any humanitarian issues the likes of which Israel is doing) because they simply did not have the military power for a bigger operation. I think it's worth noting that if both sides were more similar in terms of weaponry, numbers, funding etc. rather than the current situation where it's more akin to a house cat fighting a lion, then that list you've created would be far, far more even.

Based on what evidence? Claiming that a hypothetical genocide will be enacted by a people who are oppressed is a ridiculous statement in and of itself.

If the situation was equal militarily you’d have a completely different scenario, completely different standpoint and point of view of the combatants.

You wouldn’t have occupier and occupied and that changes the whole situation entirely.

The answer is both. While the scale of the atrocities committed by the Israeli government are far greater than what Hamas has done, the October 7 attacks combined with all the suicide bombings and rocket attacks that have been committed by Hamas over the previous however many years have firmly proved that Hamas is a terrorist organisation too. I'm not claiming that both sides are 100% equally as bad as each other. However, both are fundamentally in the wrong, and it's just as correct to label the Israeli government a terrorist organisation as it is Hamas even if the scale of one side's acts are significantly greater than that of the other's.

I will refer you to the International Court of Justice:

https://www.icj-cij.org/node/204176

C. The legality of the continued presence of Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (paras. 259-264)
The Court considers that the violations by Israel of the prohibition of the acquisition of territory by force and of the Palestinian people’s right to self-determination have a direct impact on the legality of the continued presence of Israel, as an occupying Power, in the Occupied Palestinian Territory. The sustained abuse by Israel of its position as an occupying Power, through annexation and an assertion of permanent control over the Occupied Palestinian Territory and continued frustration of the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination, violates fundamental principles of international law and renders Israel’s presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory unlawful.
This illegality relates to the entirety of the Palestinian territory occupied by Israel in 1967. This is the territorial unit across which Israel has imposed policies and practices to fragment and frustrate the ability of the Palestinian people to exercise its right to self-determination, and over large swathes of which it has extended Israeli sovereignty in violation of international law. The entirety of the Occupied Palestinian Territory is also the territory in relation to which the Palestinian people should be able to exercise its right to self-determination, the integrity of which must be respected.
Responding to an argument made by three participants, the Court observes that the Oslo Accords do not permit Israel to annex parts of the Occupied Palestinian Territory in order to meet its
- 17 -
security needs. Nor do they authorize Israel to maintain a permanent presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory for such security needs.
The Court emphasizes that the conclusion that Israel’s continued presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory is illegal does not release it from its obligations and responsibilities under international law, particularly the law of occupation, towards the Palestinian population and towards other States in respect of the exercise of its powers in relation to the territory until such time as its presence is brought to an end. It is the effective control of a territory, regardless of its legal status under international law, which determines the basis of the responsibility of a State for its acts affecting the population of the territory or other States.

https://www.un.org/unispal/document/auto-insert-184801/

Recalling also the Geneva Declaration on Palestine and the Programme of Action for the Achievement of Palestinian Rights, adopted by the International Conference on the Question of Palestine,

Considering that the denial of the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people to self-determination, sovereignty, independence and return to Palestine and the brutal suppression by the Israeli forces of the heroic uprising, the intifadah, of the Palestinian population in the occupied territories, as well as the repeated Israeli aggression against the population of the region, constitute a serious threat to international peace and security,

Bearing in mind Security Council resolutions 605 (1987) of 22 December 1987, 607 (1988) of 5 January 1988 and 608 (1988) of 14 January 1988 and General Assembly resolutions 43/21 of 3 November 1988, 43/177 of 15 December 1988 and 44/2 of 6 October 1989, on the deterioration of the situation of the Palestinian people in the occupied territories,

The right to resistance against an oppressor by any peoples under international law has been clear for decades.

I believe there is a huge double standard applied here whereby any resistance against an oppressor in the west is designated as terrorist.

Indeed, there has been mixed movements in the Western world where recognising the right of resistance has everyone asking uncomfortable questions, such as if Israel hadn’t been barbarically oppressing the Palestinians for 75 years up to October 7th, would October 7th have happened?

And then, of course, we have to acknowledge - something few people in this thread have done - that the western narrative on October 7 is frankly riddled with holes.

https://thegrayzone.com/2023/11/18/video-what-happened-october-7/

Editor’s note: Since the publication of this interview, an Israeli police investigation has confirmed that Israeli Apache helicopters killed numerous Israeli citizens at and around the Nova electronic music festival, and that Hamas did not know in advance about the festival. The Israeli government has also acknowledged that 200 of those it counted as Israeli casualties were, in fact, Hamas militants killed by its forces on October 7, and that it may have marketed images of their charred bodies to the public as proof of Hamas’ brutality.

Max Blumenthal: Well, thanks, Chris. I’m still trying to piece together what happened on October 7. One reason that I’m left investigating even after this report that I thought was comprehensive was that in the face of so much death and destruction caused by Israel’s military in Gaza – Which is basically tantamount to genocide. You have systematic killing in Gaza – Everyone I know there has … Luckily I don’t know anyone who’s been killed, but everyone I know there has lost neighbors or relatives. They’ve all lost their homes. So the Israeli military and the Prime Minister’s office, Netanyahu’s office, are recycling October 7 atrocities and they’re also introducing new deceptions in order to try to keep the media’s lens focused on October 7 now that it is starting to hone in on the horror of Gaza. We have all these new stories about babies baked in ovens, we’ve heard stories about babies cut out of mothers’ wombs by so-called Hamas terrorists, rape, gang rape, women after being taken, gang raped in the streets in Gaza City.

All of these lies were spun out. The 40 beheaded babies was repeated by Biden, who claimed he’d seen photographs. All of these lies were repeated and put forward in order to give Israel the latitude to carry out this genocidal assault that we’re now witnessing. And we can see Biden was so stunned by the propaganda that was being pushed on him by Netanyahu’s office and the pro-Israel media that he immediately caved. Tony Blinken in his recent Senate testimony also repeated some of these lies. So I’m still trying to unpack it because it’s these lies that went beyond the actual killings and atrocities that were committed by gunmen from the Gaza Strip on October 7 that have made it possible for Israel to target and exterminate hundreds of entire families in the Gaza Strip as well as hospitals and medical centers. So I started my investigation when testimony started to filter out in Israeli media which contravened the official story of October 7.

The official story, which has been told to Americans and Israelis, is that Hamas “terrorists” stormed into Southern Israel and began shooting and killing people at random. Then burned them alive, tied up entire families in their homes, and then burned them all, somehow, melted cars and burned people in their cars as they were trying to flee, and carried out this gigantic mass shooting. It does appear clear that many Israeli non-combatants were shot by Hamas gunmen but that’s where the official story stops. What I was able to determine from these testimonies, as well as basic and visual analysis of the photos that the Israeli Foreign Minister and Foreign Ministry and Prime Minister’s office were putting forward, was that Israel used disproportionate force on its own citizens in order to dislodge a politically driven military offensive by Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, which was aimed at extracting political concessions from the state of Israel, which had been besieging the Gaza Strip for 15 years. So you read one of those testimonies, and I guess we can go into some detail about them and how I came to my conclusions.

Chris Hedges: Yeah, let’s go in because, in your article, which people can read on The Grayzone, you print pictures. I’ll let you go from there. The photographic evidence seems to contradict the statements that have come out of Jerusalem.

Max Blumenthal: It’s important to understand that the main goal in this Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad military offensive was to gather as many captives as possible, particularly Israeli soldiers, in order to trigger the prisoner exchange that was witnessed when Gilad Shalit in 2011 was released; The Israeli soldier who was taken in 2006, who was operating a tank outside Gaza, was taken in exchange for 1,027 Palestinian prisoners, including the current prime minister of Gaza, Yahya Sinwar. So this entire Al Aqsa Flood operation is understood against the backdrop of the Gilad Shalit prisoner exchange. So gunmen were sent with detailed maps to population centers and to military bases. In the military bases, they were obviously given instructions to attack and kill Israeli soldiers who were maintaining the siege of Gaza. Much of the Gaza division, which has also been responsible for so many massacres inside Gaza over the years, was wiped out. The Erez Crossing… I don’t know if you’ve been through there, Chris.

The Grayzone are not alone in this and it has been repeatedly brought up in Israeli media that the narrative given by the IDF and the Israeli government do not match the Israeli Police investigations, nor that of the United Nations.

 

[Local Dog]

"We need extra taxes on chinese products from Temu and Shein"

Bro you need to outlaw that shit

We know that both use slave labor and we know the immense adverse ecological effect that these two have

I don't get why European politicians want to limit and not just straight up outlaw such services when all they do is emit societal harm

 

[Cancel cult]

Edit: imagine being enough of a loser to sit in a thread you got banned from months ago "haha"ing all my posts because you can't harass me directly anymore. I wonder why you do that to me, boo, and not anyone else with similar opinions to mine... hmmmmm...

just a thought, maybe its because others don't make claims like "all republicans are fascists"

 

[Divine Retribution]

just a thought, maybe its because others don't make claims like "all republicans are fascists"

This is hysterical and you would know why if you had actually participated in this thread prior to his ban.

 

[Adeleine]

And then, of course, we have to acknowledge - something few people in this thread have done - that the western narrative on October 7 is frankly riddled with holes.

https://thegrayzone.com/2023/11/18/video-what-happened-october-7/

The Grayzone are not alone in this and it has been repeatedly brought up in Israeli media that the narrative given by the IDF and the Israeli government do not match the Israeli Police investigations, nor that of the United Nations.

Using GrayZone as a source is probably not a good idea. Per wiki:

Coverage of The Grayzone has focused on its misleading[25][26][27] reporting, its criticism of American foreign policy,[1][4]and its sympathetic coverage of the Russian, Chinese and Syriangovernments.[4][21][28][29] The Grayzonehas downplayed or denied the persecution of Uyghurs in China,[33] and been accused of publishing conspiracy theoriesabout Xinjiang, Syria and other regions,[34][35][36] and publishing disinformation about Ukraine during the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which some have described as pro-Russian propaganda.[32][36]

Grayzone staff Blumenthal and Aaron Maté acted as briefers on behalf of the Permanent Mission of the Russian Federation to the United Nations at UN meetings organized by Russia.[37][38][39][40][41] Managing editor Wyatt Reed, contributor Mohamed Elmaazi and regular freelancer Jeremy Loffredo worked for Russian state media before contributing to website.[42]

(i included the whole quote block for completeness. Like, it should probably be apparent to regular thread readers that I’m not including “criticizes American foreign policy” as a reason it’s a poor source.)

 

[S.A.C. Martin]

Using GrayZone as a source is probably not a good idea. Per wiki:

(i included the whole quote block for completeness. Like, it should probably be apparent to regular thread readers that I’m not including “criticizes American foreign policy” as a reason it’s a poor source.)

Alright Adeleine, how about this then?

https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news...-captive/00000190-89a2-d776-a3b1-fdbe45520000

Is Haaretz a good enough source for you?

Or perhaps Al Jazeera? (Or will that be “biased” - ?)

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024...-shows-hamas-abuses-many-false-israeli-claims

Because there is a large body of evidence that is showing the Israeli line on October 7th is, at a bare minimum, inaccurate.

 

[S.A.C. Martin]

I see you, like others, are so eager to post itt about this topic, however if you were to read a few sentences further, either in the article or in the post you quote, you would see this same material exists behind a paywall in Haaretz, a paper of record in Israel: "The Grayzone are not alone in this and it has been repeatedly brought up in Israeli media that the narrative given by the IDF and the Israeli government do not match the Israeli Police investigations, nor that of the United Nations". In a situation characterized by an information warfare to obfuscate a genocide, it may be worth a bit deeper investigation or reflection on information before deciding something shouldn't be engaged with. The same content exists in other places, which you appear to have completely ignored in a rush to post solely about an apparently dubious source being used, without any of your own content to add to the discussion.

Beat me to it. I absolutely stand by this post, nail on head Myzozoa.

Adeleine, I used the Grayzone as it had, for my money, the best english language version summing up of the significant and worrying contradictions within the Israeli version of the October 7th story.

I need not remind us of the “Hannibal Directive” - and the use of helicopter gunships on the day. Draw your own conclusions from the evidence, by all means.

Actually, the definite point at which something stops being a "terrorist organization" would be when it is recognized by all the other states, the UN, other int'l institutions etc as being the government of a territory. People confused by this are either very low politics literacy (common) or else practicing their sophistry: No one is going around accusing Nasa scientists, or Israeli historians of being gov sponsored terrorists, and claims about Hamas as a terrorist org and epithets by western media should be taken with many grains of salt at a time when garbagemen and hospital workers in Palestine are killed for terrorist by association with the government 'Hamas'. One can dislike a org/state politics and politicians, you can think they're evil, but smearing them as a terrorist organization while they're recognized as the gov of a territory and are in practice the gov of the territory, including as administrators of all basic life-supporting infrastructure, just marks one as unable to grasp reality outside the terms given by primetime dramas and jingoistic news anchors. There is no sense in which Hamas is coherently to be designated a terrorist organization, although many ppl like to repeat buzzwords thrown around in the media.

To your other confusion: as I said before, but which was apparently not clear enough: as prison keepers and settler colonists engaged in keeping a population in prison to further the project of dispossessing them, Israel bears complete responsibility for the behaviors, deeds, misadventures, and excesses that develop or occur within its prison population. This is for analogous reasons that I would be fired if I pressed charges on one of my clients for hitting me, it is understood that in having total control over the person in my locked care that I have all the power, that my choices precipitate and pre-empt theirs, that they, lacking meaningful autonomy, cannot for example consent/assent to anything under the duress of my total dominion. No one is excusing oct 7th nor does Israel's responsibility for Oct 7th extend from the fact that they did put Hamas into power, that responsibility stems from their power and actions as prison warden and thus strictly and legally-speaking the state of Israel brought Oct 7th about and is the only political entity that is or can be ultimately responsible for said events.

This is an excellent summation too.

In the UK, we have to tread carefully given the proscribed nature of the group involved, but as an academic looking at this academically, international law is clear in the specific instance of Palestine and Israel.

 

[gvmgvm40]

The issue with this is you are asking Palestinians to give up their universal right to self determination that virtually everyone else enjoys (Catalans, the Irish in Northern Ireland and others aside).

I agree that the apartheid should be ended. I personally think the only way we get to peace is Israel withdrawing beyond the 1967 borders and Palestine being finally recognised as a full member of the United Nations.

Israel will find that having a close neighbour can be peaceful, if they choose to be peaceful. The Palestinians have endured 76 years of occupation, repression and genocide. They want peace. They have known no kind of peace since 1948.

But that requires the ultra far right in the USA to stop warmongering, which isn’t going to happen without strong, powerful push back (and, complicating things more, the left in the USA appear to echo much of the pro Israeli line of thinking on the far right).

You can’t change this and make peace without changing the direction of travel in the USA and Israel.

And yes, you can withdraw Israeli settlers from beyond the borders, it has happened before in Gaza and can happen so again. But we’re nowhere near that right now.

Self-determination is not a "right" in the conventional sense, it's an ideal. It's a noble one that I support, but whether it works out in practice depends on factors such as military power of the minority vis-a-vis the occupying country, the cost-profit analysis of the occupier (whether it's "worth it" to continue the occupation or not), international support, political dynamics within the occupying country, etc. "Virtually everyone else" does not enjoy self-determination, I can count many other groups that were militarily suppressed off the top of my head: Kurds, Armenians in Karabakh and Western Armenia, Pontic Greeks, Assyrians, Yazidis, Balochis, Kashmiris, Sikhs, Tibetans, Uyghurs, Chechens, Circassians, Crimean Tatars, Rohingyas, Tamils, Papuans, Moros, Kanaks, Biafrans, Tigrayans, Darfurians, not to mention hundreds of indigenous groups across Oceania and the Americas, you could also include the descendants of slavery, and I can go on. Should they be independent? Yes if they want, if you ask me. Do I think there's a realistic chance they will be? To be frank, no for the vast majority of these.

The righteous don't always win in the real world -- "we are right, therefore we will win" is not a realistic argument, it's idealism. Sometimes (even often if you look at history of colonialism, I would say) the morally right side gets crushed and that's that. I'm not "asking Palestinians to give up their universal right"-- in practice, they already don't have such a right, do they? It's not up to me to decide of course, but I am saying (on a Pokemon forum nonetheless), given that the Palestinian independence movement has been militarily defeated and doesn't look like it'll achieve its demands, whether it might be a better idea to change their demands accordingly to legal equality within a binational state instead of full independence based on '67 borders, and whether that demand would be preferable to the status quo of a continued apartheid regime and repeated "two-state solution" proposals/negotiations that don't go anywhere.

Of course Israel can withdraw settlers from beyond its borders. Logistically it's possible. Do you think they will in any realistic future scenario? When they withdrew from Gaza in 2005, they relocated 8,000 people. Today the number of people who live in settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem is about 750,000--almost a hundred times the number they relocated from Gaza. Even if there are land swaps that annex major settlement blocs to Israel, you're looking at numbers in the hundreds of thousands. I agree that "we’re nowhere near that right now". Do you think we'll ever be somewhere near that within this century? That's the question, and I'd say no unless Yellowstone goes off and takes half of the US with it. Real analysis should take real power dynamics into account and strategize accordingly, and not remain idealist, at least.

Using GrayZone as a source is probably not a good idea. Per wiki:


(i included the whole quote block for completeness. Like, it should probably be apparent to regular thread readers that I’m not including “criticizes American foreign policy” as a reason it’s a poor source.)

I think this is lazy argumentation tbh. There's a McCarthy-esque environment regarding Israel right now and mainstream media will not publish anything that'll poke too many holes in Israel's narrative, so it's not surprising that only "alternative" media outside the Anglo-American consensus will. Merely pointing out a website has a pro-Russian/Chinese bent is meaningless to me. Yeah, so what? Do you have any actual criticisms of the content?

 

[S.A.C. Martin]

Self-determination is not a "right" in the conventional sense, it's an ideal. It's a noble one that I support, but whether it works out in practice depends on factors such as military power of the minority vis-a-vis the occupying country, the cost-profit analysis of the occupier (whether it's "worth it" to continue the occupation or not), international support, political dynamics within the occupying country, etc. "Virtually everyone else" does not enjoy self-determination, I can count many other groups that were militarily suppressed off the top of my head: Kurds, Armenians in Karabakh and Western Armenia, Pontic Greeks, Assyrians, Yazidis, Balochis, Kashmiris, Sikhs, Tibetans, Uyghurs, Chechens, Circassians, Crimean Tatars, Rohingyas, Tamils, Papuans, Moros, Kanaks, Biafrans, Tigrayans, Darfurians, not to mention hundreds of indigenous groups across Oceania and the Americas, you could also include the descendants of slavery, and I can go on. Should they be independent? Yes if they want, if you ask me. Do I think there's a realistic chance they will be? To be frank, no for the vast majority of these.

The righteous don't always win in the real world -- "we are right, therefore we will win" is not a realistic argument, it's idealism. Sometimes (even often if you look at history of colonialism, I would say) the morally right side gets crushed and that's that. I'm not "asking Palestinians to give up their universal right"-- in practice, they already don't have such a right, do they? It's not up to me to decide of course, but I am saying (on a Pokemon forum nonetheless), given that the Palestinian independence movement has been militarily defeated and doesn't look like it'll achieve its demands, whether it might be a better idea to change their demands accordingly to legal equality within a binational state instead of full independence based on '67 borders, and whether that demand would be preferable to the status quo of a continued apartheid regime and repeated "two-state solution" proposals/negotiations that don't go anywhere.

Of course Israel can withdraw settlers from across its borders. Logistically it's possible. Do you think they will in any realistic future scenario? When they withdrew from Gaza in 2005, they relocated 8,000 people. Today the number of people who live in settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem is about 750,000--almost a hundred times the number they relocated from Gaza. Even if there are land swaps that annex major settlement blocs to Israel, you're looking at numbers in the hundreds of thousands. I agree that "we’re nowhere near that right now". Do you think we'll ever be somewhere near that within this century? That's the question, and I'd say no unless Yellowstone goes off and takes half of the US with it. Real analysis should take real power dynamics into account and strategize accordingly, and not remain idealist, at least.

There’s a lot here that I (sadly) agree with. Pragmatism versus idealism, if I may say so and these are not unfair things to point out.

But I will push back a little - just because something is idealist in nature, doesn’t mean anyone should automatically give up as a result.

I think this is lazy argumentation tbh. There's a McCarthy-esque environment regarding Israel right now and mainstream media will not publish anything that'll poke too many holes in Israel's narrative, so it's not surprising that only "alternative" media outside the Anglo-American consensus will. Merely pointing out a website has a pro-Russian/Chinese bent is meaningless to me. Yeah, so what? Do you have any actual criticisms of the content?

Agree with this, but it is also easily remedied by pointing out that Israeli media is also reporting the factual inaccuracies in the Israeli govt and IDF’s stories.

On a side note, from a Brit - McCarthy-esque? Heard this thrown around a lot in American media, can anyone give me a TL;DR explanation or point to a good source (that isn’t wikipedia).

 

[Adeleine]

Alright Adeleine, how about this then?

https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news...-captive/00000190-89a2-d776-a3b1-fdbe45520000

Is Haaretz a good enough source for you?

Or perhaps Al Jazeera? (Or will that be “biased” - ?)

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024...-shows-hamas-abuses-many-false-israeli-claims

Because there is a large body of evidence that is showing the Israeli line on October 7th is, at a bare minimum, inaccurate.

To my understanding, Haaretz is good enough for me. I've heard a lot of great things about Al Jazeera, but their partial funding from the Qatari government makes me a bit nervous, so I don't want to commit myself to a decisive statement in favor. In matters not directly tying to Qatar, at least, like this one, though, I would expect to trust their reporting.

Unfortunately, my answer here leaves a set of interpretation ambiguities that I want to address to prevent any derailing.

My discussion about journalistic sources in the past two posts was only focused on the question of "what sources, due to their quality or lack thereof, should be used in this thread or not". It was not an implicit challenge to your argument – this is why I did not talk about the other sources and content in your post, because I had no criticism to give. I felt no need to implicitly challenge your broader argument because I agreed with your argument and did not disagree with it. I did disbelieved the Israel line on October 7th before your post and still do.

Adeleine, I used the Grayzone as it had, for my money, the best english language version summing up of the significant and worrying contradictions within the Israeli version of the October 7th story.

If a source is bad enough that it shouldn't be used in this thread, I believe it still should not be used even if it presents a helpful summarization. If you think my criticism of GrayZone is unfair and that it is a source that should be supported in this thread, however, just let me know. From a more materialist point of view, because the thread rules require the use of credible sources, the mods may remove content that uses non-credible sources.

I think this is lazy argumentation tbh. There's a McCarthy-esque environment regarding Israel right now and mainstream media will not publish anything that'll poke too many holes in Israel's narrative, so it's not surprising that only "alternative" media outside the Anglo-American consensus will. Merely pointing out a website has a pro-Russian/Chinese bent is meaningless to me. Yeah, so what? Do you have any actual criticisms of the content?

There appears to be some misunderstandings here. Some of what I'm about to say here is repeating from the earlier parts of my response, but I wanted to collate all relevant information in the section responding to you for your convenience.

1) You believed it was lazy argumentation because it was not argumentation at all – I had no intention of debating SAC's content. I agree with SAC's content, and if I disagreed, I probably would have said so. I understand how you got to this interpretation – I acknowledge that tangential criticisms done to chip away at a bigger argument is something that people do sometimes – but I was not doing this here.

2) I get what you mean about the McCarthy-esque environment, but SAC found two sources that don't publish pro-Russian, anti-Ukrainian misinformation from former Russian state actors / state media actors. We could likely find several more compatible sources without comparable flaw. Some alternative media is better than other alternative media.

This post constitutes more investment in the thread than I anticipated from my original post, which I envisioned as a relatively quick and compartmentalized note about source quality, and I probably don't have the desire to continue making more long, careful responses on the subject. Unless there is some big information or mistake I did not consider, I've likely said what I wanted to say on the matter.