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Sephyr
Aug 28, 2012
Since propaganda has been such a visible aspect of this ongoing genocide, a quick illudtration of how it goes along down here.

Since shortly after the Oct. 7 attacks and the Israeli assault, a figure called "The Son of Hamas" has been doing the rounds in btazilian media, being hosted and interviewd in pretty much every major vehicle. He's the son of a founding member of Hamas and an IDF spy/colaborator. His fare is the usual "Israel is blameless and its on palestinians to not be nazis anymore, so then they won't be bombed anymore". He's also been doing paid speaking engagements.

His presence was -slightly- dimmed when old social media of him stating that he'd value the life of a single cow over the lives of 1.6 billion muslims, but....not as much as you'd expect. By then the war itself was mostly moving out of the main news and just become another Thing Going On.

https://oglobo.globo.com/mundo/noti...palestina.ghtml

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Sephyr
Aug 28, 2012
See, Eisenhower got the UK, France and Israel to stop being shits in Egypt over a weekend of phone calls and the US was not even the sole hyperpower then, and even Reagan managed to rein in israeli butchery after having a brain fart and thinking he was in a movie, but it's unthinkable to imagine Biden could affect one iota of influence, the smol bean.

Sephyr
Aug 28, 2012

Kalit posted:

But why is he even telling Israel to show any restraint at all? Especially if he doesn't care about the opinion of the US population?

Is he? From here it seems he's just giving them cover by deciding that whatever they do is proportionate and humane, even as israeli soldiers post tiktoks going "Woo hoo, brigade 3025 just burned our 4th village! On to the next!"

Just because Biden is still enough of a politician to talk in smiling platitutes instead of baying for blood openly so he doesn't needlessly offend average liberals, doesn't mean he really gives a toss.

I mean, as others pointed out, sending arms to Israel would likely sail easily through Congress. He could even wash his hands of the deal, go "Yeah, really sad, wish the bombing would stop but Congress calls the shots, really sucks", but he really -cares- about this. Just not in the direction those giving him the benefit of the doubt think.

Sephyr
Aug 28, 2012

Nucleic Acids posted:

Apparently they found the bodies of 21 hostages, which might mean something if Hamas hadn’t already reported hostages were killed in air strikes and their bodies were underneath rubble.

I mean there is no reason to believe any of them died at the hands of anyone other than Israel.

There has been no official report or confirmation of hostage bodies being found, and even the pro-IDF accounts that were posting that have deleted their posts.

Sephyr
Aug 28, 2012

fuctifino posted:

I've been lurking too for the same reasons. So many posters no longer post here, and some have even been driven away from the forum by Koos's over-moderation.

Koos is a prime example of someone who shouldn't be anywhere near moderation tools or decisions. They have a shallow and sensitive ego, and they have a very strong bias over the implementation of their very rules. It's time to loving stop this bullshit...

Thirded. Use any bit of irony or figure of speech? You're not being "serious", take 12-18 hours off.

(USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)

Sephyr
Aug 28, 2012
It feels like the 'intercepted' phone calls going "Yeah, this is Khamas Bob, we totally bombed those ambulances muahaha, unlike those stalwart IDF who never would!" were, like, 6 years ago instead of 3 months.

Funny how that and the 'IDF would never attack an hospital. Or that one. Or that one.' lines were memory holed. Gotta make room for new narratives, I guess, and keep the sources credible.

Sephyr
Aug 28, 2012

The Top G posted:

Not even two years ago Israel blew up the AP building in Gaza and they still carry water for them like this. I’m reluctant to use the “cuck” word but I don’t know how else to describe this type of pathetic behavior

https://apnews.com/article/israel-middle-east-business-israel-palestinian-conflict-fe452147166f55ba5a9d32e6ba8b53d7

The thing about imperialism/colonialism is that the -prestige- of empire is worth more than life and money.

Portugual was literally sending its youth into the grinder in their African colonies in the 1960s and 70s, losing them to ambushes and PTSD from the atrocities they comitted, and the money and resources they got back didn't even cover the investment, pensions and other costs of the venture (though of course, the -right- people made out like bandits while others footed the bill), but to question that logic or drop the project entirely was out of the question. It was an admission of being wrong, of losing, and worse, that they were not an european power but a decadent backwater.

They were willing to spend and bleed the country into the grave to bolster that fantasy, and almost did.

Sephyr
Aug 28, 2012
Regarding the perfidy shooting, there's also the simple operational matter that extracting three targets, one of them apparently paralyzed, makes for a more complex operation. Takes longer, more things can go wrong, needs a different kind of transportation, you get screeching families and orgs demanding release.

Apparently the IDF and Shin Bet have realized they are no longer the Raid on Entebe/Capture Klaus Barbie people and are just sticking to basics: kill people and break poo poo. Their degraded capabilities can't really be trusted for more finesse than that.

Sephyr
Aug 28, 2012
Seems like the ghoulish Telegram channel showing palestinians being humiliated, tortured and killed and israelis/sionists laughing and cheering was at least partially an IDF enterprise.

https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news...8d-f4b6a9c00000

This is the perfect invisible news for the West because it's not like anyone is showing much of civilian destruction/carnage in the first place, so they were never going to look too deep into that. And revealing that it has an official angle makes it even more feel-bad for audiences, or rather, the editorial teams.

It's kinda bizarre how in actual Israel, media vehicles have more guts to show content that toes the narrative than elsewhere. It doesn't get them applause, and i suspect media laws are going to harden in Israel along with everything else after this, but still.

Sephyr
Aug 28, 2012
Pretty much. If the USA was really flexing its institutional muscle to get aid and food into Gaza and curtail the increasing siege of the West Bank, I might believe the whole "We're working super hard to rein in these bloodthirsty israelis, it's a full time job!" spiel.

That they instantly plunged a dagger into one of the few UN agencies keeping the situation there survivable based on -zero- evidence tells me that they're just keeping the ethnic cleanse to a media-friendly pace. "We're doing it Homestead Act style, guys, not Sabra and Chatila! Keep it on the DL until it's a fait accompli!"

Sephyr
Aug 28, 2012
Seems like the IDF timed its new wave of attacks with the Superbowl in the US.

I mean, it's likely wasted craftiness because it's not people would care even if they were not glued to the screen, but you do you I guess.

Sephyr
Aug 28, 2012

Young Freud posted:

Israel is looking to expand the war into Egypt, with their media manufacturing consent for a war with Egypt.
https://www.jpost.com/middle-east/article-786386


Hmm. I'd take this with a whole shaker of salt. Not to give Israel any credit, but retired military officers say a LOT of insane poo poo that is basically airing their martial fantasies and hoping someone in power picks them up and makes them real.

Sephyr
Aug 28, 2012

Hong XiuQuan posted:

Why do you think the US is supplying Israel with thousands of tank rounds if it didn't need them?

e:

I don't get the urge for people to say 'Israel really doesn't need all this money and weapons it keeps saying it needs'

It absolves people from making any demands. "Even if you cut the cash and ammo pipeline it'll still happen, so why waste breath and credibility annoying our government about it?"

Sephyr
Aug 28, 2012

Your Brain on Hugs posted:

https://jacobin.com/2024/02/biden-administration-gaza-israel-war

Article with quotes from US officials implying what we already knew, that Biden is on board with what Israel is doing in Gaza, and leaks to contrary are simply PR. Would just like to state my opinion here that Biden, and the US government are completely culpable for this genocide and should all be tried in the ICJ and ICC for aiding and abetting a genocide. History will not be kind to the people who defended or equivocated on any of this.

Unsurprising, but good to have verification. It still took a particular kind of brokebrained self-deception to buy that story. Willful ignorance of the man, his political past and present, and just how the US international alliance works.
"Hey Joe, how about you make good on that campaign promise of pardoning college debt" : Well you see we need to means-test this, explore every option, make sure it's not going to the wrong people, check every box in Congress, can't hurry this along, gotta think of the Supreme Court, oh dang the Parlamentarian is making a sour face at us bummer dude

"Hey Joe, fork over the cash and warheads for our ethnic cleansing" : Here's an advance skipping Congress, plus everything left in the armories. We're blocking the UN ceasefires and dumping on the International Court, I'm personally ampliflying the beheaded babies hasbara and tying foreign US policy bills to sending a small space program worth of more weapons and cash. Don't stop firing for a secind lads, I want to see those artillery barrels red hot and...uh, Bibi sure is a booger-eater, huh

But sadly, the world stage is full of red-handed butchers still rich and influential despite 'History's Judgement'. The unlucky ones will get called 'controversial' in their obituaries like Kissinger did.

Sephyr
Aug 28, 2012
Brazilian president Lula stated in an official speech while on his foreign diplomacy tour that the genocide of the Gazan people has only one parallel and that is the nazi slaughter of jews.

https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/its-genocide-brazils-lula-compares-war-gaza-holocaust

Local media is going bugfuck insane over it. Netanyahu replied personally and summoned the brazilian ambassador for a more direct scolding. Leftists and peace activits are trying to push toward expelling the Israeli ambassador from Brazil and cut fiplomatic ties until a cease-fire, but that is very much not Lula's usual style.

Sephyr
Aug 28, 2012
The US has just vetoed the new ceasefire resolution at the UN, being the single country in session to vote against it. It's the third such veto.

I assume it's to make their own offer for a 6-week ceasefire on looser terms viable. It's supposedly going to drop in the next few days. If Israel also rejects of stonewalls this offer, it would be a massive humiliation of the USA by an ostensible ally.

Brazil has recalled its ambassador from Israel, joining Chile, Turkey and about a dozen other countries. A bunch of European countries have stated positions directly calling for a ceasefire now: Every country but Hungary wants an end to hostilities before the programmad assault on rafah.

Sephyr
Aug 28, 2012

Oscar Wilde Bunch posted:

Good to see them being consistent on being on the wrong side of everything I guess. I wonder if it's their being some bastion of un-wokeness by the American right since the GOP position seems to be 'do it harder'.

Rod Dreher is living there and just charged up his christian ki and reached chud-sayan level 4.

Sephyr
Aug 28, 2012
I think most of the bondoggle over securing a ceasefire is that Israel and the Us need to come up with some strategic victory to dress it up. "Sure, we got hit bad and humiliated on Oct 7, but look! We got Destruction of Hamas/50k dead 'terrorists/Reclaimed Gaza as jewish in return! So it's a W for us! We're strong!"

Except most of those goals are not realistic, or cannot be achieved with their current troop of 22-year-old chud Major Generals, or are just blatant ethnic cleansing.

My personal guess is that the US offer of Ceasefire took so long, and likely will keep taking longer, is that israeli diplomats keep kicking the jenga tower and resetting to phase 1. The inside governing coalition under Bibi keeps shifting and becoming more reactionary and aggressive, so they can barely finish a draft before it has something that is no longer acceptable to some faction Bibi needs to appease. "This item lets Gaza keep too much water. Rewrite everything!"

They could also just be deliberately wasting time and running out the clock as they keep the assault going, knowing the they will never be called out on it. I give it 50-50.

Sephyr
Aug 28, 2012
I'm seeing buzz of Biden backtracking on the whole "truce by the weekend" statement, but nothing official yet. Has anyone seen anything concrete?

Sephyr
Aug 28, 2012

Son of Thunderbeast posted:

If he was president, the Democrats would have to at least pretend to try and oppose him.

This. It feels awful to say it, but if loving Trump had been in power, at least some democrats would likely have found a bit of a spine to oppose this, and Europe in particular might drop the thing altogether rather than be a direct accomplice to Don&Bibi's snickering bloodbath.

But Biden's folksy rictus and "Um, we're working on it, folks! Aaaanytime now! Boy howdy, but we're talking to their guys" delaying act just gives everyone cover to look the other way and keep the bombs and cash flowing.

Sephyr
Aug 28, 2012

Biden: Talks are going well folks, I'm reining them in, peace by monday!

Bibi: gently caress all of y'all, the USA is our biiiitch! Free ride, baby!

Sephyr
Aug 28, 2012

Nebalebadingdong posted:

the us is airdropping food to a place besieged by a us ally, using guns and bombs made in the us

Yeah, it's weak theater. They have nothing else to offer. Press briefings are just an exercise in cynicism ("What, us interfere in another country's doings? Perish the thought! The US of A has NEVER engaged in sanctions, aid supension, blockades and embargoes? Stop talking crazy, we're just smol beans.") at this point, any pretense of working for a ceasefire is immediately shat upon by Bibi of Ben-Gvir posting 'Waaagh exterminate the brutes skulls for the skull throne!' the day after.

All they have left is creating factoids for the media to bounce around for a few days, while letting Israel do what it wants. See, we're not genocide enablers, we sent like five tons of cheerio's to Khan Younes!

Sephyr
Aug 28, 2012

AlliedBiscuit posted:

Israeli acquaintance shared this post. I’d really like to hear perspectives on it. I’m very much against Israel’s actions and want to push back tactfully.

It seems...well-meaning, I guess. But also twisting itself into knots to avoid singling out any of the perpetrators and enablers of the current slaughter. And tripping on a lot of racist, horrible trope in doing so.

It starts with "Hey, it's not like we're -white-, you know", hops onto "Palestinians aren't really a people, just opportunists!", wanks itself raw in the 'hey, colonialosm actually benefitted EVERYONE if you think about it', and then shits itself into a big conclusion of IT'S COMPLICATED ALRIGHT

Also, I burst out laughing when he had the balls to deploy World Most Moral Army fare in this stage of the game.

quote:

Israel has great military might, but is also hobbled by its own moral compass (if Israel were any other Arab country, Gaza would have been a parking lot by November 1).

Yeah, so unfair you can't turn your open-air prison into an open-air death camp, dude. My heart just bleeds for you here.

Sephyr fucked around with this message at 22:28 on Mar 2, 2024

Sephyr
Aug 28, 2012
Back when I still worked as a journalist, one of my jobs was translating Thomad Friedman pieces for our publication. I remember one, back in like 2005-6, that made me so loving angry I had to get up and away from my computer and go down to have a coffee and cool my head.

It was an op-ed in which he was detailing some of his recent travels. He opened with talking about how he visited a modern school in India and sat down with the kids in the Computer class and was blown away by how happy they were, how they all talked of wanting to start a business and make video games and visit America and all, and they had a grand time.

On the same trip, he apparently stopped by Palestine and also visited a school there. It was a squalid, cracked building and the kids he talked to were glum and despondent. When pressed about the future, they talked about either joining a brigade, maybe getting a work permit to be a mechanic or garbage collector in Israel, or vague stuff like 'look after my mom'.

It seemed like an earnest enough piece, if reeking of "here's how my vacation went" but made into a highly-paid op-ed.

And then he finished it with something like "The kids in India were full of hope and joy and dreams. The kids in Palestine were sag and lacking prospects. How can we make them more like the kids in India?"

And I remember thinking "Gee, I don't loving know, Thomas. Maybe because one of those groups of kids have a daily reality of living in an occupied, surrounded ghetto, and the others are in the workforce hub of the main trade route of globalization??"

I spent the better part of an hour wondering if he was so status quo-pilled he honestly could not see the difference, or of he was deliberately being obtuse and whiteashing the issue. 'These kids just have a loser mindset. Can't be helped.'

Of course, it being Friedman, there's decent odds it never happened and he just made it up, like his famous cab drivers that all have prepared pro-market sound bites for him as soon as he hops into the car.

Sephyr
Aug 28, 2012

kiminewt posted:


I expect some people will find it distasteful to visit Israel at the moment (because I'm paying VAT and boosting the economy I guess) and particularly to go to a party there. Completely understandable, but at the same time life goes on and I don't think any Palestinians will gain anything by me withholding this visit.

We only have so much time with our parents and friends. I'd never fault someone for traveling to be with family, and it's not like you traveled over there to do TikTok on the Wailing Wall going 'We're making the Gaza wail for -real- over there, woo!'.

Thank you for the firsthand account of the situation there. Really feels like post 9/11 vibes but in a far more ethnically-organized society.

Also, I saw a ton of pro-Israel ads and hostage pictures in the airports here in Argentina, first last December and then back again in February when I return.

Sephyr
Aug 28, 2012
https://www.politico.eu/article/israels-netanyahu-says-he-will-defy-bidens-red-line-and-invade-rafah/?utm_source=Twitter&utm_medium=social

I mean, even calling it a red line is stretching it a lot at this point. But it'll still be grimly amusing to see Bibi just deliberately making GBS threads on his main, long-term benefactor while still being showered with bennies.

He might as well wear a MAGA hat when he announces the operation itself.

Sephyr
Aug 28, 2012

Shuka posted:

Trump and Kushner have a very public record of courting hard line middle east governments. Kushner and US mercenaries were directly involved MBS's coup. I'm having trouble imagining any GOP candidate entertaining any pro Palestinian positions.

I don't think anyone is saying that Trump and his ilk are posting watermelon emojis and all in for Palestinian statehood. At best, they are fickle and distracted with other grifts and might not fully play with the establishment formula of total support. Or just ignore the region, which is often enough of a boon.

As comparison, some of the best times in South American history were during the War on Terror, because Bush and his crew were so busy with dreams of building their new imperial order in the Middle east warzone that they mostly ignored the region, instead of doing the usual rounds of backing coups and debt-bondage (There was the fun Carmona coup attempt in Venezuela eraly on, but that was before the war really got going). Labor-aligned government were elected and even allowed to come to power and govern!

Then the GWOT wound down, Saint Obama came to town to restore civility and decency, with the establishment adults back in charge, was hugging Lula and saying he was 'the man' while the machinery of his government engineered a wave of judicial coups that set the region back at least a decade and gave birth to a thousand privatizations.

I'm not saying the millions of death and displacements of the GWOT were 'good' because they diverted imperial focus, but usually, the only decent thing an empire can do for a region is be elsewhere.

Sephyr
Aug 28, 2012

nightsister posted:

Israel was on something of a path of questioning itself and reevaluating its hard right before the 10/7 attacks, but that has been completely obliterated with the war.


Emmmm.... no. Not even with the word 'something' doing Atlas levels of lifting in the first sentence. Israeli society has been turning hard right in varying degrees and speeds for my entire lifetime, and particularly since the Rabin murder. It's so wedded to a reactionary ultraconservatine ethnoreligious mold that is has two leading hard-right main parties.

It literally had a chance to eject old warmonger ethnonationalists like Bibi recently and twisted itself into a knot to put him back in power with immunity. Hardline settler candidates (instead of mere settle advocates) went from being a bizarre thing to fully normalized. Horrible crimes like the violence during the 2018 march to the wall fully condoned and supported, when they were even acknowledged.

The only 'questioning itself' present Israel is ever going to do is like the Greeks did after they wiped out Troy. "Huh, maybe those guys were not so bad, anyway we won and they're not around anymore". Maybe 60 years after they finish their ethnic cleansing one of them will write a book called 'Necessary Evils' or they'll wear kaffyies as a fad.

Sephyr
Aug 28, 2012
What, this? Oh, it's just Israel murdering journalists and lying about it.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/03/19/gaza-journalists-killed-israel-al-jazeera-footage/

quote:

"The Israel Defense Forces said in a statement the next day it had "identified and struck a terrorist who operated an aircraft that posed a threat to IDF troops". Two days later, the military announced it had uncovered evidence that both men belonged to militant groups - Thuraya to Hamas and Dahdouh to Palestinian Islamic Jihad, its smaller rival in Gaza - and that the attack had been a response to an "immediate" threat.

The Washington Post obtained and reviewd the footage from Thuraya's drone, which was stored in a memory card recovered at the scene and sent to a production company in Turkey. No israeli soldiers, aircraft or other military equipment are visible in the footage taken that day - which the post is publishing in its entirety- raising critical questions about why the journalists were targeted. Fellow reporters said they were unaware of troop movements in the area.

I guess when you're killing more journalists in 3 months than died in 4 years worth of WW2, running up the score takes precedence over everything else.

I'm surprised they even bother to offer justifications anymore. It's not like they bothered to explain why they killed poet Refaat Alareer in his sister's apartment (after blowing up his previous home, too). I guess he was weaponizing the english language against the Israel's inaliable right to ethnically cleanse.

Sephyr
Aug 28, 2012

Yawgmoft posted:

Biden and Schumer just gave big overtures to the two state solution, and this is a huge slap in the face to just expressed US wishes.

We can expect US response to this slap to be the foreign policy version of "Mmngh. Harder, daddy."

Sephyr
Aug 28, 2012
Of loving course a blood-drenched homunculus like Pipes is still around. with no larger GWOT going, he needs something to keep his death-doner going.

What other Bush-era ghoul are we bringing back? Is Richard Perle still around?

(USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)

Sephyr
Aug 28, 2012

Nail Rat posted:

What in the world would it take for the Biden fucks to admit it's a genocide? I'm guessing there is no line.

If Israel ever flips its geopolitical support to Russia or China (astronimically low odds, granted, but stranger things have happened), the US establishment will be dusting off this genocide, Sabra and Chatila, and likely even the USS Liberty incident to call them traitorous vipers.

Otherwise? They can make a giant statue of a merkava tank running over a ziptied civilian (there's a picture I wish I had not seen) in the middle of Jerusalem and they'll still get only praise and more care packages.

Sephyr
Aug 28, 2012

TheDoublePivot posted:

Curious as to why you would think a British appointee in the 20s would have anywhere near equivalent influence on current history compared to the holocaust and would be worth bringing up repeatedly. Probably nothing to think about.

Always interesting when they break out the Grand Mufti. One foreign-appointed bigot 100 years ago somehow always trumps decades of current apartheid politics, bantustans, in addition to overt declarations by israeli leader holding office regarding their aim of jubjugating/expelling/eliminating palestinians.

al-Husayni bewitched Hitler into doing the Holocaust with his muslim magic arts, but Ben-Gvir moving to get tens of thousands of rifles to arm his death squads is just another inconsequential day at the office.

Sephyr
Aug 28, 2012
The last bits of IDF body camera footage I saw were of them shooting up empty classrooms and hallways, 3-4 months ago.

Other than that, it was pretty much tiktoks of them blowing poo poo up and ransacking homes, posted on Telegram for the approving fans.

Sephyr
Aug 28, 2012
It's been very poorly covered by western media, but things have apparently been (more) insane in the West Bank over the last couple of days.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/israeli-photographer-beaten-by-settlers-while-trying-to-document-rampage-of-palestinian-town/

Dozens of people gravely injured and a couple of confirmed palestinian fatalities. Could get even worse now, with all eyes on the Iranian response and now the wait for the response to the response.

Sephyr
Aug 28, 2012

khwarezm posted:


Why do we still have Germany.

"NATO exists to keep the Soviet Union out, the Americans in, and the Germans down." - Lord Hastings Lionel Ismay, first general secretary of NATO.

Sephyr
Aug 28, 2012
I'm seeing some videos of things escalating in the West Bank. Bulldozers knocking israeli-built walls and fences, people marching, protests, etc. It's not an Oct 7 event, for obvious reasons, but it seems hotter than the region has been in years.

Sephyr
Aug 28, 2012

Nail Rat posted:

Would it have been better if they had, say, struck the Israeli embassy in Jordan? That would have been pretty much in kind.

Not practical. Involves attacking in a neutral country, with immense risk of stray missiles/drones killing Jordanian civilians/infrastructure, ruining relations with a neighbor and making Iran appear inept/weak. Besides, there will likely be jordanians in the embassy itself, so there's very little upside.

Compare it to striking Israel directly: even one missile that lands makes you the first local faction to land a punch in Israel's territory since 1967, very little risk of a bomb falling somewhere inconvenient, you get to make them spend expensive counter-missile material on your cheap decoys, maybe get some data on their defenses.

And the level of IDF response from doing either is about the same.

I mean, cooler heads have all left the stage at this point, it seems, but one would wonder if any israeli leader might pause and think "Our present course just resulted in the largest killing of jewish people since the Holocaust, international relations that were slowly thawing now making GBS threads the bed again, and our territory being bombed by actual modern cruise missiles for the first time ever. Maybe this is not the way."

Sephyr
Aug 28, 2012

Piell posted:

Did you know that Israel will control security for the land side of the pier, thus giving them the ability to block it whenever they want?

"Security conditions around the pier and ongoing militarydeployment in the area has forced us to suspend operations of the pier. Indefinitely."

Of course, as others have said, there's 90% odds that there will be no pier, and it was only ever a fake talking point to create positive buzz for a news cycle. Not unlike how every SOTU address has a "Oh btw we're going back to space big time, Mars here we come! Or, um, cancer! Yeah, we're finally curing it, watch this space!" tidbit.

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Sephyr
Aug 28, 2012
I guess since US diplomacy let a resolution pass last month that made Ben-Gvir sad, they are now working overtime to gently caress over palestinains in a more permanent manner. Which means leaning on voting countries to refuse granting Palestine nationhood.

https://theintercept.com/2024/04/17/united-nations-biden-palestine-statehood/

quote:

The diplomatic cables detail pressure being applied to members of the Security Council, including Malta, the rotating president of the council this month. Ecuador in particular is being asked to lobby Malta and other nations, including France, to oppose U.N. recognition. The State Department’s justification is that normalizing relations between Israel and Arab states is the fastest and most effective way to achieve an enduring and productive statehood.

While clarifying that President Joe Biden has worked vigorously to support “Palestinian aspirations for statehood” within the context “of a comprehensive peace that would resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict,” a diplomatic cable dated April 12 details U.S. talking points against a U.N. vote for Palestinian statehood. The cable says that Security Council members must be persuaded to reject any proposal for Palestinian statehood — and thereby its recognition as a sovereign nation — before the council’s open debate on the Middle East, scheduled for April 18.

“It remains the U.S. view that the most expeditious path toward a political horizon for the Palestinian people is in the context of a normalization agreement between Israel and its neighbors,” the cable reads. “We believe this approach can tangibly advance Palestinian goals in a meaningful and enduring way.”

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