so why should I go out of my way and take up my own time to try to convince you that Israel is not mud when the rest of the world is? — BitconnectCarlos

What you do or don't do is not my problem.

It is. Absolutely rubbish state. Built on the widespread massacre of natives. A worse record of locking up and murdering our black folk than the US, which is an almost impossibly hard thing to do. But you're welcome to post in the Scotty From Marketing thread if you feel so strongly about it.

Is it ever hard to function when the entire world around you is so unrepentantly racist and genocidal? — BitconnectCarlos

I think you mean Israel. And no, because the idea that a better world than this shithole is possible - and that one day, Israel will no longer be an apartheid state that is up to its neck in blood - keeps me happy as sunshine.

Israeli authorities have incarcerated hundreds of thousands of Palestinians for what it deems “security offenses” since 1967, including hundreds at virtually any given time held in administrative detention based on secret evidence without charge or trial for renewable periods that can extend for multiple years. As of April 2021, according to the Israeli Prison Services, authorities held 4,323 Palestinians from the West Bank, not including East Jerusalem, in custody for “security offenses,” including 426 in administrative detention. Israel jails most Palestinian prisoners from the OPT inside Israel, even though transferring residents from occupied territory violates international humanitarian law, and complicates the process of family visits to them. By contrast, Israeli authorities, as of March 1, 2021, held no Jewish Israelis for “security offenses” and, over nearly 54 years of occupation, have held not more than a handful of Jewish Israelis in total in administrative detention.

Israeli authorities have for decades mistreated and tortured Palestinian detainees, using tactics rarely utilized against Jewish detainees. A September 1999 Israeli Supreme Court ruling forbidding several torture tactics led to a significant reduction in the number of people tortured, but has not stopped the practice. About 1,300 complaints of torture against Israeli authorities have been filed with Israel’s Justice Ministry between 2001 and June 2020, which have resulted in one criminal investigation and zero prosecutions. The Israeli rights group Public Committee Against Torture (PCATI) reported in June 2019 that, of the more than 100 complaints of alleged torture it filed over the last five years at the hands of Israel’s internal security service, Shin Bet, 31 percent involved physical violence, 40 percent painful and prolonged shackling or use of stress positions, 66 percent sleep deprivation, 61 percent threats, and 27 percent sexual harassment and humiliation. Security forces also routinely use unnecessary force against children during arrests, which often take place in the middle of the night, and physically abuse them in custody.

Security forces also frequently raid populated Palestinian areas in the West Bank, even Area A, where Israeli authorities ostensibly charged the PA with fully managing civil and security affairs. Israeli forces routinely use excessive force, including live ammunition, against Palestinian demonstrators, rock-throwers, suspected assailants, and others in policing situations when lesser means could have been deployed. Between January 19, 2009, and January 31, 2021, Israeli security forces killed 449 Palestinians in the West Bank, according to B’Tselem.Many thousands more have been grievously wounded.

Settlers, meanwhile, enjoy virtual impunity for criminal acts against Palestinians. Between 2005 and 2019, police closed 91 percent of the complaints tracked by the Israeli human rights group Yesh Din of reported settler violence against Palestinian persons and property without indicting anyone.The army not only systematically fails to intervene, but, B’Tselem found, “they often provide the perpetrators escort and back-up. In some cases, they even join in on the attack.”

https://www.hrw.org/report/2021/04/27/threshold-crossed/israeli-authorities-and-crimes-apartheid-and-persecution

Sorry that you were caught out in a lie. Guess you have to change the subject now.

Nope. Those arrests were state terrorism engaged to shut down discontent over Israeli mass murder in Gaza.

@Foghorn, here's the deal. If you continue to post in order to simply silence discussion about this topoic, or continue to question the motives of those who post on the basis of whataboutsisms, I will delete your posts. Simple as that.

Israel will not arrest people for communicating with Palestinians in Gaza. — BitconnectCarlos

Sorry that you literally have no clue what you're talking about and/or are an outight liar:

According to the Israeli police report on 25 May 2021, at least 1550 were detained in Israel since 9 May 2021. The overwhelming majority of detainees were Palestinian citizens of Israel or from Jerusalem. The majority of those detained were released following high fines and financial guarantees, or on the condition that they cannot return to their neighbourhoods for periods of time and/or home arrest, highlighting the arbitrary nature of their arrest. Random arrests took place in the streets and public arenas during repression of protests, as well as during home raids and attacks on families, where many children were detained. In addition to the physical violations of the rights of child detainees,many children were subjected to threats, denied access to legal counsel,interrogated in a language that is not their mother tongue and for prolonged periods, including at night.

Between 24 and 25 May 2021, Israeli police carried out a retaliatory campaign of mass arbitrary arrests against Palestinians in Jerusalem and Palestinian citizens of Israel, under the announced “Operation Law and Order.”In its statement, the Israeli police highlighted that the aim of this campaign is “to settle the score” with Palestinians for their political positions and activities.Dr. Hassan Jabareen, general director of Adalah said “These raids are intended to intimidate and to exact revenge on Palestinian citizens of Israel –‘to settle the score’ with Palestinians, in the Israeli police’s own words –for their political positions and activities.” At least 250 Palestinians were detained in those two days, with a particular focus on demonstrators, activists, and minors. Israeli authorities submitted 150 indictments against Palestinian detainees, the majority of which related to charges of assaulting police personnel, participating in protests, throwing stones, incitement, and harassment of the police

https://www.alhaq.org/cached_uploads/download/2021/06/05/210531-final-website-current-escalation-of-israel-s-systematic-arbitrary-arrest-and-detention-campaigns-against-palestinians-1622892678.pdf

And that's just in the last two months.

but Israel does not arrest non-violent peace activists — BitconnectCarlos

:rofl:

What are you on about? Israel is an apartheid state. It dehumanises Palestinians at every point. There is no justification for it. Talking about Hamas till the cows come home will not justify any of Israel's actions.

Recognizing Israeli crimes is not contingent upon talking about Hamas, like, at all.

You know what's more repetitive than talking about Israel's crimes? Israel's crimes. But good to see you've got your priorities straight.

Excellent. Now start your thread on Syria and go play whataboutisms in your brand new thread.

And I'll say it once more: the fact that you think Palestinians are just interchangeable with any old generic 'Arab' is a bunch of racist bullshit, which is to be expected from someone who does his utmost to change the subject from Israeli crimes at every point.

Sorry, I couldn't hear you over the fact of you ignoring the point. Kindly go back to jacking each other off about how nice you all are toward apartheid regimes.

It takes an absolutely stunning degree of political maleducation to think that 'psychological needs' even ranks anywhere need the facts on the ground when it comes to explaining conflict: an apartheid regime which regularly treats Palestinian like animals, demolishes their homes, cuts down their means of living (olive groves), has control over their infrastructure, and so on. Psychological needs. What an absolute joke. Truly, some first world ivory tower bullshit. It's like, it's just all about their inability to self-actualize maaan. Jesus fucking Christ. Boomers really need to drop dead.

The fact that yall made Juneteenth a public holiday and not your voting day tells you all you need to know about the facade of 'democracy' that exists in the States. Actual virtue signalling (conservatives don't even know how to use their own vocabulary because they have no clue how to think in terms of power dynamics).

To the degree I have an opinion, it would be that the interests of both Jews and Palestinians is probably not well served by either of them having their own state in that part of the world. — Foghorn

The idea that either would simply pack and leave is so fantastical that it belongs in the same book as Harry Potter. Not worth entertaning except as fantasy fiction.

I knew we'd find common ground eventually.

According to reality that is true.

When it is not a conflict but a fascist occupation. South Africa was not 'in conflict' with its black population. It brutally subjugated them. The Nazis were not 'in conflict' with the European Jews. They exterminated them. Israel is not 'in conflict' with Palestinians. It is subjecting them to state terrorism and settler colonialism.

Show me please. — BitconnectCarlos

It's well documented. If 'speeding up the process' means the process of ethnic cleansing, then yes, it speeds up the process.

A state with a "Jews Only" street does not require 'understanding'. It requires dismantling.

Mai Khalid Afana, a Palestinian doctor and lecturer was executed a few hours ago by Israel murderers after accidentally being on the "Jews Only" side of the road.

You've said all this already about a thousand times. — Foghorn

You asked me a question, and I answered it.

If Israel stops exercising any control over Palestinians, the result of that is a Palestinian state. This is why I keep asking you if that is what you wish to see happen. — Foghorn

I do, but I think it's the second best option. I do not think that a paranoid ethnostate like Israel is viable to short or long term regional stability. In an ideal world, Israel would become an actual democracy and allow self-determination for all people under its rule. Without an ethnic basis, a single state would simply be one like any other. Whichever solution comes about, it will not be one of design, but one of necessity. In any case, the self-determination of the Palestinian people is not up for someone else to decide, and never has been. Meeting the three goals I outlined does not dictate a clear path forward, nor do I think they ought to.

Sky daddy cancelled the whole of humanity bar some dude on a boat and his fam because he got offended, pretty sure he's the original woke brigade.

It would be helpful to the thread if you could more clearly articulate what you feel the appropriate alternative to the status quo should be. — Foghorn

For Israel to not be an apartheid state would be one. For it to cease its land grabs and policy of population displacement would be another. For it to stop engaging in collective punishment by means of blockade - another war crime - would be yet another. In fact stopping Israeli war crimes altogether would be nice. Can we agree on this or is resistance to land grabbing, apartheid, and war crimes a step too far for your sensitive soul?

You also don't use it to understand conflicts as they are understood by those actually engaged in them. — BitconnectCarlos

Right, to excuse atrocity and inhumanity, which Israel is engaged in.

Yeah I don't use cultural relativism to excuse atrocity and inhumanity.

Also the idea that subjugating and devastating an entire population of people is some kind of Jewish cultural right is about as Antisemitic as I can imagine.

he main issue is and has always been the presence of a Jewish governing body that claims control of even one inch of Muslim land. — BitconnectCarlos

Yeah nothing to do with Israeli ethnic cleansing and state exercised terror.

Um, who controls incoming and outgoing traffic in Gaza? Israel and Egypt, right? Are Gazans free to come and go as they like? Is commerce free to go in and out as it pleases? — Foghorn

Via the UN Human Rights Watch:

Israel controls Gaza’s territorial waters and airspace and has blocked the building of an airport and seaport, significantly complicating efforts to travel abroad. Israel also controls the movement of people and goods into and out of Gaza, except for at Gaza’s border with Egypt, which the Egyptian government also significantly restricts. Israel controls all transit between Gaza and the West Bank and maintains a “policy of separation” between the two parts of the OPT. It controls the Palestinian population registry, which determines eligibility for establishing legal residency and obtaining an ID card. It sets the rates for the customs and value-added taxes that it collects on behalf of the PA on goods entering the common market. It enforces a so-called “no-go” zone inside Gaza, near Israeli territory. It controls the infrastructure upon which Gaza relies, including electricity lines, the underwater cable that phone calls are placed on, the network that provides internet, and the frequencies assigned to Palestinian cell phone companies.

...Since 2010, Israeli authorities have allowed most everyday goods to enter, but sharply restrict and often prohibit altogether what they deem “dual-use” items or those that could be used for military purposes, such as for building or fortifying tunnels into Israel.The government’s “dual-use” list, though, includes both overly broad categories and items that are vital to meet the needs of Gaza’s population, including “communications equipment,” “steel elements and construction products,” “drilling equipment,” “fertilizers and chemicals,” gas tanks, castor oil, and “vehicles except for personal vehicles (not including 4X4 vehicles). Israeli authorities have also claimed certain kinds of medical equipment, including x-ray equipment, as “dual use,” according to the WHO. Gisha has documented how many of these items are “rarely, if ever, allowed into the Strip.”

...These restrictions have devastated Gaza’s economy. Gross domestic product (GDP) per capita in Gaza dropped 23 percent between 1994 and 2016 in real dollars. Eighty percent of Gaza’s population relies on humanitarian aid, according to UNRWA,and more than half the population lives below the poverty line. Unemployment rates in Gaza have for some time hovered around 50 percent and are higher for young people and women

These quotes barely scratch the surface.

https://www.hrw.org/report/2021/04/27/threshold-crossed/israeli-authorities-and-crimes-apartheid-and-persecution

Israeli insecurity forces won't even let Palestinians clean up the mess left by Israeli murder cults outside of Damascus gate. Civic organization on the part of the opressed of any kind terrifies these colonialist goonbags.

I don't really have a point — Foghorn

That much is clear. Nothing but efforts to muddy discussion by means of empty, cynical speculation.

Incidentally he returned as @Bhagwan-Awe, with the same insufferable posting style, but not for very long.

I'm not an oracle. But the clear and present danger to life and safety is clearly the Israeli state, which has been running a regime of terror for decades now. And this conflation of Palestinian which some generic figure of 'Arabs' is a bunch of racist bullshit and needs to stop. Palestinians are who they are because of their belong to the land they have lived on for generations, while being displaced by genocidal regime, and are not interchangeable with any other 'Arab'.

I don't presume to know what an exact solution would look like, but I do know what it is not: an ethnocentric apartheid regime pretending to be a democracy while running a Middle Eastern Jim Crow administration. Either Israel will need to become a true democracy, or there will never be peace in the region.

Your inability to keep on topic is no one's problem but yours. Further posts to that effect will be deleted.

And so the oppression continues:

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/15/world/middleeast/israel-coalition-hamas.html

This is exactly the wrong way around. The 'author' as a writer represents a radical narrowing of the term which by contrast has a far richer history. It takes it's root from the
Latin auctoritas, or authority, and in turn from augere, “augment". The term has legal roots:

"In the sphere of private law, auctoritas is the property of the auctor (author), that is, the person sui iuris (the pater familias) who intervenes—pronouncing the technical formula auctor fio (I am made auctor)—in order to confer legal validity on the act of a subject who cannot independently bring a legally valid act into being. Thus, the auctoritas of the tutor makes valid the act of one who lacks this capacity, and the auctoritas of the father “authorizes”—that is, makes valid—the marriage of the son in potestate. ...The term derives from the verb augeo: the auctor is is qui auget, the person who augments, increases, or perfects the act—or the legal situation—of someone else". (Agamben, "Auctoritas and Potestas", State of Exception)

@Anand-Haqq was banned for poor post quality. And because there was some confusion around this - this user was banner for how, and not what they wrote.

The occupying forces.

Returning to the topic, what do members think would have been an appropriate response to rockets launched in to Israel by Hamas? — Foghorn

To stop evictions in Palestinian neighbourhoods.
To stop teargassing Islamic holy sites.
To stop practising apartheid on Arabs in Israeli controlled territory.
Little things like that.

Oh wait sorry that was all before the retaliatory rocket attacks from Israel's open air gulag.

Israel could lift the blockade of Gaza. But given that Hamas is dedicated to the destruction of Israel, that would most likely lead to the further arming of Hamas, and further warfare, which would further endanger innocents on all sides. — Foghorn

Considering that Israel is dedicated to the destruction of Palestinian self-determination, it is not 'leading' to violence, it is practicing it, day in and day out, where innocents are not merely endangered, but actually killed and subject to inhumanity on a daily basis. So as a terrorist state, it ought to stop engaging in acts of terror. The US, in turn, should stop providing material assistance and ideological support to this Middle Eastern terrorist organisation.

If not entertaining your fantasies is dodging then I happily indulge.