I find the whole court case fucking dumb and would throw it out for being frivolous. It's longstanding legal fact in every constitutional democracy that in the exercise of discretionary powers, courts cannot review the exercise of such powers. But such powers are granted; so the court can always assess whether the discretionary power was actually granted or not. If the conclusion is no such power has been granted, then that behaviour is outside of any possible immunity. And we all know we do not grant Presidents the power to do something the law explicitly prohibits.

https://www.volkskrant.nl/columns-opinie/met-het-wegkijken-van-de-massale-schendingen-van-het-oorlogsrecht-door-israel-ondermijnt-het-westen-nu-zelf-de-internationale-rechtsorde~b6522e2e/

Good opinion piece from Dutch historian Thomas von der Dunk.

Judgy much? :lol:

https://www.straitstimes.com/world/swedish-prosecutor-plans-nord-stream-blast-decision-this-week

We'll know more about the Nordstream sabotage soon.

Did anyone ever wonder why they changed their brand from "global warming" to "climate change"? — Tzeentch

It will be global climate catastrophy in a couple of decades.

This shows just how difficult the two state solution is: it's not only an issue about dividing land, it's also how viable the Palestinian State would be. The Palestine Authority has, especially in the eyes of Palestinians, become a sidekick of the Israelis. The Palestinian conflict isn't as easy as making a peace treaty with a neighboring country. — ssu

This is entirely true and which is why a staggered approach is necessary. What's particularly troublesome is, is that neither party can be trusted (the IDF least of all) to adhere to any ceasefire. So the conditions for building trust while you negotiate all the various points aren't there and that way you'll never reach the end goal. This is why this problem cannot be resolved by mediating between the parties but a ceasefire needs to be enforced by the international community. Sanctions, blue helmets etc.

I am likely an outlier in this conversation. I see two groups of people who have been buffeted by historic forces outside their control who are struggling to survive. It is an ongoing tragedy for everyone that shows no signs of ever resolving. — EricH

This is totally true it just doesn't excuse certain behaviour on both sides. And while one side gets all the support, it's cover for the worst atrocities this century and that was entirely predictable unfortunately. It's quite a feat to actually be worse than a bunch of religious fanatic terrorists. The international community should be sanctioning both sides and start enforcing basic humanitarian laws and force them to get a negotiated settlement in place. BSD all the way.

Biden doesn't bring anything to the table except "not Trump". But yes, 84 is too fucking old. You call that age discrimination, the rest of us call it common sense. There's a lot of things that start deteriorating from our 30s onwards. Memory and recall being the most important one.

Pretty pathetic Biden is the best they can do.

They could settle anywhere but in the occupied territories and they know it. It's wilful with the aim to make living conditions for Palestinians impossible and actually stealing land and destroying property. They're thugs and criminals that do not deserve the protection we accord citizens.

Since when do we care what criminals think? Carte blanche to shoot them on sight.

Just curious. What if Israel completely withdrew to 67 borders said that Palestinians have a state now (whatever that entails), and the Palestinians in charge within a few weeks launch a campaign dividing Israel in half, launching missiles from the high ground in the West Bank, and starts to form a siege on all major Israeli cities. — schopenhauer1

Funny how curiousity is then followed by a straw man as if your interlocutors are this stupid. Nobody has suggested returning occupied territories apart from a negotiated peace.

I don't agree with your assessment that the two state solution is dead. Or at least, we should make sure it isn't because the alternative will only happen when hell freezes over. I think the two state solution is the only solution the Palestinians are willing to accept and the one-state certainly is also out of the question for the Zionists. There's also the issue of the right to return, which would immediately cause non-Jews to outnumber Jews. I think that would even give non-zionist Jews pause.

The two state solution can be implemented IF the international community demands extensive resettlement of illegal settlers out of the West Bank. It would be consistent with international law instead of rewarding this genocide by slow displacement.

I don't like the clickbait title but Hajo Meyer was a respected Dutch Jewish physicist.

1964 was the US surgeon general's report. I worked on the public awareness research for the tobacco industry during my studies as a part time paralegal.

The 60s is therefore generally considered the time a reasonable person should have been aware of the bad effects of smoking but it could've been much sooner - as early as the 1920s if there weren't so many doctors willing to promote cigarettes in return for payment.

Funny how you keep insisting on that interpretation. What does that say about you?

Edit: edited your comment after my reply. Also classy.

Still making excuses for the inexcusable and victim blaming at the same time. Classy.

Tobacco delayed a backlash for 30 years. — Mikie

Try over a 100 years. And really even before that it was known but tobacco companies were already peddling propaganda at the time. There were plenty of people worried about the bad effects of smoking around the 1900s but there wasn't any statistical proof. That came in the 1940s which led to more propaganda.

You're just biased and the guardian is a leftist rag.

This has been my point for nearly a decade because of what Likud stands for and Herut before that. This is just accelerating due to the 7 October attack and now obvious but it's been the game plan for them for decades now. A slow genocide is still a genocide.

His club seems to be Dufferin Aquatic Masters. https://www.swimming.ca/en/swimmer/5257113/

But it seems some open tournaments are effectively almost exclusively frequented by young girls, with some participants in their 20s and last age group from 16. So he's an outlier in age and trans on top. Maybe he had a good reason but this isn't reported on.

As to whether trans women are allowed to compete, that depends on the rules. I think it's perfectly logical to demand trans people only get to compete in their original sex.

History will view them poorly. — Mikie

Why wait for history? I already do.

Antisemitism has once again become normalized; Jews are seen as the oppressors by 2/3 in Gen Z — BitconnectCarlos

This first part has nothing to do with antisemitism and it's simply true if we ignore the convenient conflation nobody here has busied.

Immigrants don't have rights but we have all committed to allowing refugees to gain asylum. So I think we should be ignoring refugees here because they actually have a right to asylum and countries generally have an obligation to keep them safe.

The immigration problem is grossly exaggerated in the Netherlands - and probably most other European counties. Most immigration is labour migration: people who are asked to work here because we either don't have the people or nobody local wants to do the work.

Those workers generally bring families too. They are exploited and now about 75% of homeless people are labour immigrants who were abused by perfidious secondment companies.

But in general agree with the sentiment that a sovereign states can make immigration rules (excluding refugees) but the debate is often fact free and has very little consideration for the effects on businesses that rely on an influx of foreign labourers. Especially if we want to manage an energy transition now that nobody in the Netherlands knows how to build something as everybody was pushed to academic studies because we culturally look down on manual labour. And that's biting us in the ass.

Which I haven't. That's entirely your interpretation. It seems you still don't understand what an analogy is. But please continue focusing on what you apparently think is a "gotcha".

For 75 years their policies have failed, utterly, to produce a security situation that Israel can build on for the future. — Tzeentch

That's because "security" is the fig leaf for illegal land grab. It's not a failure, it's the defining feature of their policies.

Because an oppressor is not a victim.

Guilt by association fallacy.

I have no interest in discussing this with you other than pointing out the obvious that once again is a stupid post.

You fail to understand this court case is also about international opinion. The plausability assessment by the court will affect the political position of allies vis-a-vis Israel.

For instance, this ruling will affect the court case in the Netherlands that Oxfam Novib started against the government, increasing the likelihood the court will order the government to stop providing material support (parts for planes in particular).

Edit: plus, such an interim judgment was unlikely to go that far too begin with.

Just finished listening. The ruling is relatively weak. Most of the things the court told Israel to do, they are already supposed to do under the Genocide Convention. Only the report in a month is beyond existing legal obligations.

Despite the weakness of the ruling, I do believe the negative inference is interesting. The fact Israel is ordered to comply with the law seems to underline the fact they are in fact not doing that at this time. Combined with the plausibility of SA's claim genocide is happening, I think it's likely years from now Israel will indeed be convicted of at least genocidal intent and possibly genocide, unless it radically improves the humanitarian aid to Gaza.

My 0.02 USD.

Ruling starts around 1 hour into the video.

I think great leaders ride on a wave that is created by the circumstances of the moment. I think we should be paying more attention to the masses and what is driving them. Why are so many clinging to a tribe, instead of their own comprehension of the good? — Athena

Did you know Tolstoi and Dostoyevsky had an entire discussion about whether great men were great or simply people at the right time at the right moment? This resulted in War & Peace and Crime & Punishment.

I'm a historie totale guy myself (camp Tolstoi).

That's not how criminal law works though. So I see no reason it would here. Unless you mean "reaponsible" as something else as layman's version of "guilty". In which case you should explain what you mean.

Edit; how I understand it now: if I kill someone in self-defence, then I'm not "responsible" for his death but my attacker was.

That's an unjustified appeal to moral equivalence that ignores context. These actors are not operating in a vacuum.

Once again: understand what an analogy is. Everybody understands beating a dog just makes it aggressive; this is no different than people. Why abused kids often become abusers, why dangerous neighbourhoods raise dangerous people.

And you have it reversed. Their actions result in who's better or worse. It's because Israel had no rights to the occupied territory, so armed resistance is just. It's Israel having collectively punished Gazans for decades. It's a matter of applying legal and moral principles as a result of which Israel is much worse than Hamas. Any tragedy visited in Israeli citizens is by their own making, Jews sacrificed on the Zionist altar.

I've noticed that you repeatedly liken palestinians to dogs or children. Given this is the case, how can one believe that they're ready of self-rule? The international community ought to set them a proper bedtime. — BitconnectCarlos

Except I've done no such thing so the rest of your post is idiotic. Maybe figure out what an analogy is.

Yeah that's all I need to hear to ignore you as a one-sided terrorist-supporter. — schopenhauer1

Except I'm not. As I've stated before I don't condone all their methods. But nuance is difficult. The point is, why don't you demand Israel to deradicalise their insane colonisation policy, apartheid regime and war crime tactics? No, in your mind, Hamas and PA need to take steps to become peace loving hippies while being ethnically cleansed by their neighbours. It's an idiotic ask. When Israel stops its crimes, then you can expect these things.

Now I might be mistaken as a matter of fact, but I suspect that no one here - except maybe ssu - has any special knowledge. — tim wood

Yes, don't let my masters in international law and 10 years of working for Amnesty stand in the way of assuming nobody here has any special knowledge. :lol:

They are, 1) what exactly, near as you can tell, do the Palestinians want? And 2) what in your opinion should the Israelis do? — tim wood

These questions have been answered by me regularly in this thread even in reply to you.

I think the main problem is that some people think there's a moral equivalence between the violence of Palestinians and Israel. That requires you to deny several of the following things:

1. Palestinians are oppressed, discriminated against and economically undermined by border control that basically functions like the worst sanctions we have in the world
2. A gross differential in military might and state power
3. A gross differential in political support from other countries and political representation
4. Israeli "security" trumps Palestinian "security" pace every draft of every deal where on average there's pages upon pages on the former and very little or nothing in the latter
5. Israeli deaths are a fraction of Palestinian deaths
6. The multitude of discriminatory laws in Israeli proper linked to religious affiliation
7. Palestine barely functions, Israel is a modern state claiming to be a democracy

So when a Palestinian cheers an Israeli death, it's not the same thing. If an Israeli is killed in this conflict, it's not the same thing. To interpret the violence between these two groups as morally equivalent is wilfully ignoring context.

Nothing in the past 20 years has given any indication Israel wants peace. If one side doesn't want peace and undermines it every time, what's the moral obligation of the other side? At what point does violence against the oppressor become a moral obligation? — Benkei

Here's a two-state solution and how to get there:

1. Israel to unilaterally recognise a right for the Palestinians to have a sovereign state where the 1967 borders will be the basis for the size of Palestine
2. stop all further settlements in WB and evictions in East-Jerusalem, recognise ownership rights in East Jerusalem
3. repeal all discriminatory laws in Israel proper
4. no more collective punishment of Palestinians
5. no more blockade of Gaza and its air space and sea
6. no more mass destruction in response to ineffectual missiles or balloons
7. tear down the wall
8. For the interim period, Gaza and WB remain occupied territories but they will be policed instead of military oppression
9. Palestinians to commit to an indefinite cease fire as long as Israel maintains the above 8 points
edit: 10. forgot: Palestinians to recognise Israel along the 1967 borders as the basis of the size of israel

In other words, stop the crimes. There's no excuse.

Enter into the transition period where Palestine should be set up:
1. include the political wing of Hamas in talks as well as PA
2. land-for-land exchanges to arrive at comparable land size
3. Israel to pay Palestine an amount equal to all the monies spent supporting illegal settlers so it has the means to settle the new lands it receives through the land-for-land exchange
4. Palestine to hire their own first and Israeli contractors second (which will lead to "reparations" flowing back to Israel and creating economic interdependence)
5. have religious leaders negotiate the Temple Mount
6. Jerusalem as independent city-state administered by Palestinians and Israelis alike
7. gradually transition policing activities in Palestine to Palestinians
8. Set up a special task force of like minded Israelis and Palestinians to investigate (terrorist) crimes committed by Israelis against Palestinians and vice versa, where jurisdiction will be with the state of the victim
9. retreat from WB and Gaza and set up border controls
10. Declare a Palestinian state
11. Party with your Israeli neighbours — Benkei

Once again, very one-sided nonsense about deradicalisation when it's Israel employing extremist's measures against an entire civilian population. Hamas and the PA don't need to deradicalise when terrorist bombings are a consequence of Israeli oppression. Nobody went around telling the IRA to "deradicalise" but when they're sufficiently different all of a sudden it's barbarism, which is a convenient label for the entire region for you but is basically just racist as fuck.

@praxis I'll rephrase his point that might take this discussion somewhere. NOS4A2 believes various acts were committed that, while lawful, constitute an immoral usurption of power morally equivalent to an actual coup.

It could be a fair point and worthwhile to investigate if it weren't for the fact he keeps denying the actual election interference (both unethical and unlawful) that Trump pursued. In other words, the whole point is a red herring vis-a-vis this thread.

He doesn't know shit about the subject but insists on posting crap.

Edit: check page 76. — Benkei

That page is simply proof where you yourself admit you don't know what you're talking about. I didn't say I specifically spoke to you then now did I? Try again.