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Also, it's simultaneously true that Biden AND Trump are unusually personally bad on Israel and US foreign policy is conducted mostly by intelligence agencies and bureaucrats and isn't very responsive to elections.
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Mar 10, 2024 16:24
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Quantum Cat posted:Is anyone else getting tired of being forced to assume good faith from this cavalcade of hasbara shitheads kramering into the thread to retread the same old discussed to death and thoroughly discredited genocidal talking points and then vanish in a puff of smoke when anyone tries to get them to defend their mindless lust for Palestinian death only for the next one in the queue to rinse and repeat and so on? Because holy poo poo is it exhausting to read. On top of the moderators being state department lackeys and other flavors of government serfs, the head admin of this website is a Biden sycophant. This is a feature, not a bug.
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Mar 10, 2024 16:39
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fool of sound posted:Also, it's simultaneously true that Biden AND Trump are unusually personally bad on Israel and US foreign policy is conducted mostly by intelligence agencies and bureaucrats and isn't very responsive to elections. i do think that there's room for a US president to be less uncritical of israel than biden's being right now - the US power elite has never been unable to drop a client when it gets too inconvenient, and israel at this time is being very inconvenient. probably the americans putting their foot down on this issue would also be good for the israeli government (if not netanyahu personally), as it would give them a way out of the current war without losing too much face. biden's policy on this issue is not only immoral, it is counter-productive even from the perspective of bolstering the US' geopolitical situation
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Mar 10, 2024 17:58
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Skex posted:Have you actually read up on Hamas's political ideology? Have you? New Hamas charter, 2017: quote:16. Hamas affirms that its conflict is with the Zionist project not with the Jews because of their religion. Hamas does not wage a struggle against the Jews because they are Jewish but wages a struggle against the Zionists who occupy Palestine. Yet, it is the Zionists who constantly identify Judaism and the Jews with their own colonial project and illegal entity. You might point to their original charter, but if you accept Hamas as a fundamentally Islamist organization, then you should understand Naskh and how an Islamic organization might not perform these revisions lightly. V. Illych L. posted:i do think that there's room for a US president to be less uncritical of israel than biden's being right now - the US power elite has never been unable to drop a client when it gets too inconvenient, and israel at this time is being very inconvenient. probably the americans putting their foot down on this issue would also be good for the israeli government (if not netanyahu personally), as it would give them a way out of the current war without losing too much face. biden's policy on this issue is not only immoral, it is counter-productive even from the perspective of bolstering the US' geopolitical situation Yeah, I mentioned this before, having such a devout Zionist president is extremely detrimental to Israel right now. They're losing a shitload of money, hemmorhaging citizens, the north is still getting bombed, still losing soldiers, losing insane amounts of esteem worldwide....But they can't stop on their own because that would be admitting defeat. They need a US president willing to give them a Stabbed In The Back myth. Neurolimal fucked around with this message at 18:04 on Mar 10, 2024 |
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Mar 10, 2024 17:59
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I’ve seen people get probed for not having original arguments but I’ve seen “but trump bad” as responses to arguments against Biden. People will demonstrate how Biden is bad and someone inevitably comes in to say that Trump is worse
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Mar 10, 2024 18:41
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Quantum Cat posted:Is anyone else getting tired of being forced to assume good faith from this cavalcade of hasbara shitheads kramering into the thread to retread the same old discussed to death and thoroughly discredited genocidal talking points and then vanish in a puff of smoke when anyone tries to get them to defend their mindless lust for Palestinian death only for the next one in the queue to rinse and repeat and so on? Because holy poo poo is it exhausting to read. Yes and it seems worse these last few weeks. New flavour of calm Hitler comes into distract discussion of the actual genocide by 'just asking questions', or demanding a point by point rebuttal to their long post while just dipping out when cornered by facts. The more egregious Israel gets in their slaughter, the lower the tone of discussion gets in here thanks to a rotating list of hasbara trolls working within the rules of these forums to catch regular posters probated when they overstep the rules in their frustration. Marenghi fucked around with this message at 19:17 on Mar 10, 2024 |
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Mar 10, 2024 19:13
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Neurolimal posted:Have you? How about not digging 16 bullet points in. quote:Preamble Or maybe. quote:
They are not a Leftist organization. They are a right-wing authoritarian religious movement and there is no reason to believe that they would honor a ceasefire. The Oct 7th attack was intended to evoke exactly this kind of overeation from the Israel. So the most likely scenario if Israel were to engage in a unilateral ceasefire would be for Hamas to initiate another provocation which would really set the genocide into high gear. A ceasefire is not what is needed, what is needed is for Israel to change their tactics from arms length bomb the poo poo out of stuff that results in unacceptable levels of innocent civilians being harmed in the cross fire to boots on the ground with strict rules of engagement to reduce collateral damage. That is a hard sell to Israel because it would by necessity result in more Israeli casualties. But that isn't a ceasefire and wouldn't be facilitated by stopping arms shipments. If there was an easy answer to this it would have been solved sometime in the past 70+ years.
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Mar 10, 2024 19:14
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whats an acceptable level of civilians dying to destroy hamas?
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Mar 10, 2024 19:20
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Skex posted:How about not digging 16 bullet points in. Your response was to someone using the term Nazis, alluding to Hamas hating Jews. Whether or not Hamas is an Islamic organization was never in contention.
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Mar 10, 2024 19:21
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there is a genocide going on and y'all are taking about u.s. electoral politics (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Mar 10, 2024 19:23
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OctaMurk posted:whats an acceptable level of civilians dying to destroy hamas?
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Mar 10, 2024 19:34
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Skex posted:They are a right-wing authoritarian This is Israel. More so because we have ample evidence to prove that Israel never honors its agreements with Palestine.
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Mar 10, 2024 19:37
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Skex posted:
Not gonna address the rest of your post because nobodies claimed Hamas is a progressive left wing organisation. Currently they are the main force opposing Israeli oppression and deserve support for that. Israel had boots on the ground. You may have seen videos from it. They stormed a house and shot an elderly, deaf man dead. They also lost lots of forces to Hamas tactics of trapping homes with the sounds of children playing. Asking Israel to use strict rules of engagement is about as useful as wishing. It won't happen. What could influence Israel would be the US cutting support on the basis Israel reduces civilian casualties which would require stricter ROE. But Biden has made clear there's no red lines for him when it comes to Israeli war crimes.
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Mar 10, 2024 19:39
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Actually what is needed is a no fly zone, naval blockade and a series of strikes to cripple Israeli military forces and infrastructure for a start, along with sanctions targeted at all Israeli industries.
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Mar 10, 2024 19:48
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Having difficulty articulating just how bonkers the "but Hamas (started it/is evil)" arguments are. If Israel was only ever moments away from brutally slaughtering a captive population with full US support, Hamas provoking them obviously isn't the loving problem. Glad to see it keep coming up though, it's extremely common in media, in-person, and even on this forum. Anecdotes can sound exaggerated, it's good that "but hamas!/but trump!" is represented. Disgusting and shameful that this is where we are at, and the best we can expect is full US support with one hand, while the other offers insultingly insufficient gestures.
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Mar 10, 2024 19:50
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RealityWarCriminal posted:there is a genocide going on and y'all are taking about u.s. electoral politics It's because it's pretty hard to defend Israel at this point, so apart from the occasional clumsy hasbara troll, most of the contention is around the culpability of the US and Biden in particular. Thus you mostly only get discussion when Biden supporters trying to minimize or equivocate on his moral culpability. The people posting actual useful news and discussion and largely doing it elsewhere.
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Mar 10, 2024 20:06
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I’m just glad we get to rehash this every few days.
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Mar 10, 2024 20:07
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Skex posted:How about not digging 16 bullet points in. I wouldn't want to live under a non-secular government either, but the "scary religious authoritarian" sections you choose to pick from that kinda highlight that you are more afraid of muslims than anything else. Oh no, they have a section with about as much religious extremism as the American pledge of allegiance. Oh no, they have a section that affirms that Palestinian culture and society is centered around the holy city of Jeruselum with all of its historical and religious significance. They're literally occupied by a Jewish ethnostate and geographically adjacent to the holy city for three religions I don't know what else to tell you
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Mar 10, 2024 20:52
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National Parks posted:I wouldn't want to live under a non-secular government either, but the "scary religious authoritarian" sections you choose to pick from that kinda highlight that you are more afraid of muslims than anything else.
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Mar 10, 2024 21:20
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ded redd posted:On top of the moderators being state department lackeys and other flavors of government serfs, the head admin of this website is a Biden sycophant. This is a feature, not a bug. This is correct, and people in intelligence and defense are aware of it and keeping track of this place on a magnitude people are not aware. The jig is up, you could say.
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Mar 10, 2024 21:24
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I think it's more likely that users here have normal-American political opinions, like "Israel's going too far but these Hamas guys are crazy too," than that the military-intelligence complex is concentrating hard on posts on a website with maybe 10k daily users.
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Mar 10, 2024 21:38
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https://twitter.com/POLITICOEurope/status/1766895256199446995 lmao, that red line didn't last long. I'm sure consequences for this will be forthcoming any day now. Civilized Fishbot posted:I think it's more likely that users here have normal-American political opinions, like "Israel's going too far but these Hamas guys are crazy too," than that the military-intelligence complex is concentrating hard on posts on a website with maybe 10k daily users. I doubt SA is an explicit target and it's probably more incidental than anything, but people like Brown Moses definitely exist on this site. Esran fucked around with this message at 22:11 on Mar 10, 2024 |
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Mar 10, 2024 22:06
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Your Brain on Hugs posted:The people posting actual useful news and discussion and largely doing it elsewhere. yes, yboh, it would be nice if people did more of that Al Jazeera newsfeed with a blurb that seems to disagree with the UN/USAID numbers I was using for malnutrition deaths, not sure if I was misreading the reports or if they were using statistical estimation and this is confirmed deaths: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2024/3/10/israels-war-on-gaza-live-israel-is-restricting-lifesaving-aid-unrwa quote:As Muslim holy month of Ramadan begins, UNRWA chief says “extreme hunger” spreading rapidly in Gaza, while two more Palestinians die of starvation in north Gaza bringing total deaths from malnutrition to 25. Other, not comprehensive bits from the feed: quote:Netanyahu orders prison preparations for ‘thousands’ of new arrests On that last one my "this seems like it might have lost some clarity in translation" senses are tingling. Not a big fan of Israel taking more of their own hostages from Gaza, but it's not exactly a surprise. -- Looks like the first ship with supplies for the pier is heading over: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-68526503 and there's a Spanish ship and barge headed for the Gaza coast with aid: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-68518918 I'm a little unclear on exactly how they're unloading it but the article says they might be able to improvise a pier? Not sure what's up with that, might be another communications mishap. quote:The ship will take around two to three days to reach an undisclosed location off the coast of Gaza, Mr Camps said. 
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Mar 10, 2024 22:15
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I'm going back over reports / the last couple days, in the meantime 1) let's not do the US electoralism dance in this thread 2) please dial it down with the low content shitposts 3) while "what should be done about a sequence of posters coming in and ignoring previous discussion" is ideally a topic for the feedback thread that is currently open, your concerns are noted and I'll be taking a look at that.
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Mar 10, 2024 22:25
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Esran posted:https://twitter.com/POLITICOEurope/status/1766895256199446995 He said it was a red line, also that he wouldn’t stop weapons transfers. So, more of a green light in all actuality.
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Mar 10, 2024 22:52
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hadji murad posted:He said it was a red line, also that he wouldn’t stop weapons transfers. It also looks like the Israelis have a green light to fire upon Palestinians seeking aid from the future pier: https://twitter.com/kenklippenstein/status/1766881197630648386
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Mar 10, 2024 23:14
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Skex posted:So you're just ignoring Trump huh? a trump presidency would most likely lead to him pulling virtually all support from Ukraine and instead redirecting it to Israel
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Mar 10, 2024 23:22
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Google Jeb Bush posted:On that last one my "this seems like it might have lost some clarity in translation" senses are tingling. Not a big fan of Israel taking more of their own hostages from Gaza, but it's not exactly a surprise. I think a convincing argument that this pier idea is a boondoggle designed to distract people is that all the worst people in the world, including the people currently executing the genocide, are in favor of it. Herstory Begins Now posted:a trump presidency would most likely lead to him pulling virtually all support from Ukraine and instead redirecting it to Israel The orange man is not currently president, and this type of counterfactual is white noise, because it's very hard or impossible to argue for or against them in a convincing manner. I might just as convincingly argue that Trump would get catty when Netanyahu doesn't show proper deference, while Biden is a True Believer and will accept Netanyahu spitting him directly in the face, and Trump's pettiness would therefore make him the harm reduction candidate. I don't think arguing over whether Trump would be slightly worse or slightly better (but either way, still lovely) is interesting, because it just boils down to unqualified guesswork. Esran fucked around with this message at 23:51 on Mar 10, 2024 |
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Mar 10, 2024 23:36
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Esran posted:The orange man is not currently president, and this type of counterfactual is white noise, because it's very hard or impossible to argue for or against them in a convincing manner. He will be the Republican candidate in a presidential election this year. Talking about what Trump would do is not white noise in that context.
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Mar 11, 2024 00:10
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He's not the president currently. When and if the conflict is going on later this year maybe that would be the time to discuss how Trump would handle it. Right now it's just pointless theory-crafting.
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Mar 11, 2024 00:18
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Marenghi posted:He's not the president currently. When and if the conflict is going on later this year maybe that would be the time to discuss how Trump would handle it. Right now it's just pointless theory-crafting. He's also a former president. Trump came up in the first place because of a post about how Biden was uniquely bad on Israel, and worse than previous presidents on this issue. If that's going to be a topic of discussion, I'm not sure how Trump isn't relevant.
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Mar 11, 2024 00:28
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Trump was a poo poo and his policies lead to the current conflict. But he's not actively supporting a genocide, Biden is. I'm not sure how bringing up Trump would be supporting the genocide even harder is helpful.
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Mar 11, 2024 00:39
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DeadlyMuffin posted:He's also a former president. Trump came up in the first place because of a post about how Biden was uniquely bad on Israel, and worse than previous presidents on this issue. If that's going to be a topic of discussion, I'm not sure how Trump isn't relevant. Because "Biden is uniquely bad in regards to Israel" is a historical discussion, while "Trump would be worse, at this moment in time" is hypothetical guesswork. If you have any interesting insight from the first Trump presidency in regards to Israel, feel free to contrast that, but "Trump would be worse" is a discussion killer designed to run interference on the Biden administration's accountability with regards to the Genocide.
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Mar 11, 2024 00:42
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National Parks posted:Because "Biden is uniquely bad in regards to Israel" is a historical discussion, while "Trump would be worse, at this moment in time" is hypothetical guesswork. Trump has said what actions he would take regarding the current genocide so the only hypothetical is how much he would follow through but it's not like we don't know his thoughts on the matter. Maybe if you don't want Trump to be brought up stop bringing up how Biden is worse than him because that is a prompt for a discussion.
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Mar 11, 2024 00:46
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National Parks posted:Because "Biden is uniquely bad in regards to Israel" is a historical discussion, while "Trump would be worse, at this moment in time" is hypothetical guesswork. If you are trying to compare which president is worse on a topic then discussing how two of them would handle the same scenario seems more valuable than refusing to do so. The second half of your post is conspiracy theorism. If you think someone in this thread is trying to run interference on the Biden administration's accountability with regards to the Genocide then make an argument for it rather than just tar people with that broad brush. socialsecurity posted:Maybe if you don't want Trump to be brought up stop bringing up how Biden is worse than him because that is a prompt for a discussion. This seems like a reasonable approach to the issue, I would not have discussed him here were it not for that prompt.
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Mar 11, 2024 00:47
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Trump's got no core values but himself, and he changes course over the pettiest poo poo; he backed out of the Venezuela coup because Guaido gave him manlet energy when they finally met. I don't think it's productive to guess at what he'd do, and I find it rather morbid to apply Lesser Evil logic to who'd oversee a genocide better. We're also eight months out from November.
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Mar 11, 2024 00:58
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trump's stance on israel in the current election is not actually responsive or generally relevant to "biden is worse than any president has been to date on this subject," which is a historical claim. if someone said "biden is the president who has eaten the most grilled cheeses", then if someone said "trump has promised if elected to eat even more grilled cheeses" it would be neither responsive to the claim nor relevant to the broader conversation, because the first claim is very obviously retrospective and historical and "another president could eat more grilled cheese later" is very obviously not the point of the first claim, which is about situating the current moment in historical context. neither the unwillingness of posters to read a historical claim in good faith nor their inability to distinguish between relevant and irrelevant followup conversations make critiques of biden a bad subject for this thread, as he is in fact the primary us policymaker on israel, and historical comparison remains a vital way to understand the extent of what he could or could not do successfully in terms of altering his policy approach. he could alter his approach significantly, and in lives lost and damage to the united states' reputation worldwide and to its diplomatic efforts in the region is very obviously the worst president in regards to israel thus far. his unwillingness to act has had an unthinkable human cost and permanently set back the international rights-based regime that has been a cornerstone of u.s. foreign policy in the late 20th and early 21st century. Valentin fucked around with this message at 01:05 on Mar 11, 2024 |
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Mar 11, 2024 01:01
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DeadlyMuffin posted:He will be the Republican candidate in a presidential election this year. Talking about what Trump would do is not white noise in that context. Come on, I literally just explained in the bit you quoted what I meant, and it wasn't "Trump's opinions aren't important in an election year". First off, the post prompting this was a deflection in the first place. Despite some people's obsession with him, the imaginary actions of Donald Trump are not relevant to a discussion about Biden's actual real-world handling of Israel, and how Biden is not just a run-of-the-mill terrible president, but is in fact much worse than the norm, in terms of what he has actually done, and not what our imaginations tell us he might do. Second, how is "a trump presidency would most likely lead to him pulling virtually all support from Ukraine and instead redirecting it to Israel" anything other than white noise? There's no evidence offered to support this assertion, it's not news or informing people about something Trump said, it's just a reflexive "But Trump" because people are criticizing Joe Biden. Moreover, it doesn't give people anything to engage with. If you agree, you'll nod your head that Trump is a doo doo head and ignore the post. If you disagree, it's impossible to meaningfully discuss, because there's no substance to that post. I think this type of counterfactual almost always ends up being just a statement of blind belief, so it's not interesting. But if you absolutely must argue that Trump Would Be Worse, you could at least bother to put some meat on those bones, and put together a meaningful case supporting your assertion. Don't just post a oneliner that you think Donald Trump has a smelly butt, and especially don't do that as whataboutism to divert discussion of Joe Biden. DeadlyMuffin posted:If you are trying to compare which president is worse on a topic then discussing how two of them would handle the same scenario seems more valuable than refusing to do so. That is exactly the wrong thing to discuss, because you're immediately leaving reality and dipping into what you imagine the candidates would do, given the same situations. We're not talking about what the candidates might do in an imaginary setting where we give both of them the same chessboard, we're talking about what these people actually did when they held office, or what they are currently doing. We're talking about real actions taken, not hypotheticals. DeadlyMuffin posted:The second half of your post is conspiracy theorism. It is not a conspiracy theory to note that when Biden is criticised, certain posters have a tendency to want to talk about Trump instead. There doesn't need to be any coordination for this to be happening, it's a very common reaction to criticism of "your team" to want to attack the opponent instead of offering a defense. socialsecurity posted:Maybe if you don't want Trump to be brought up stop bringing up how Biden is worse than him because that is a prompt for a discussion. The people who insist on dragging Trump into everything are not those criticising Biden. What tends to happen is someone will say Biden is handling Israel worse than previous presidents (a statement about what past presidents actually did, not a statement on what we imagine they might have done), and then someone will see that as an opportunity to say "But in my imagination, Trump would be worse".
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Mar 11, 2024 01:13
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socialsecurity posted:Trump has said what actions he would take regarding the current genocide so the only hypothetical is how much he would follow through but it's not like we don't know his thoughts on the matter. Maybe if you don't want Trump to be brought up stop bringing up how Biden is worse than him because that is a prompt for a discussion. Feel free to elaborate on any of that instead of just implying you have an ironclad counter waiting in your pocket
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Mar 11, 2024 01:14
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My point is that this kind of statement:Esran posted:Were previous presidents also bad? Yes. Joe Biden is much worse. *invites* comparison to previous presidents and if they were worse or not. Not if their accomplishments were worse, you're talking about the person. "Joe Biden has done more damage to the Palestinian people than any previous US president" is a statement looking at the president in their historical context. "Joe Biden is much worse than previous presidents" is not. If you don't want to talk about it, don't invite the discussion. But, this isn't the election thread, and I am happy to stop talking about Trump here.
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Mar 11, 2024 01:25
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