Another odd question is if Israel wants a ceasefire, why are they funding primaries against any candidate here that calls for a ceasefire?

FWIW, I tend to avoid "silent majority" type arguments. It is way too easy to fall into "We the People believe . . . " traps where you just assume that everyone must surely agree with you and your friends.

But here I swear it feels right. Pretty much everyone I talk to in person thinks

(1) Hamas is an evil terrorist organization
(2) Israel has the right to defend itself and rescue hostages
(3) Israel is killing too many innocent civilians as it does number 2.

But none of the screaming voices I hear online can hold those three ideas in their head at once.

I tend to avoid all political talk outside of at home with my wife and a couple places on the internet, but but this is where my wife and I both are. Seems fairly straightforward in this regard but the internet shows us otherwise.

yeah right? Like one FB friend does nothing but show videos of palestines which contain stats. Nothing about anything else. The whole college campus thing seems similar. Is the protesting on college campus thing a huge deal? Who knows. The internet sure thought it was. Looking at things in a vacuum is unhelpful as well as it doesn't really make people care about your cause. It's like the ultratrans supporters yelling at me in facebook and reddit. They START the argument then if you say ANYTHING they yell even more with other people passive aggressive liking them and downvoting you.

Hamas leadership understands that civilian casualties help their cause and are accused of putting civilians in harms way

Hamas also claiming that they don’t put civilians in harms way

Is a tough circle to square


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It really is straight forward, but not being a zealot for either side either makes you a pro-genocide baby killer, or completely anti-Semitic. Being critical of Israel doesn't mean you hate Jews, and believing that Israel has a right to exist doesn't mean you hate Palestinians.

I think the issue is more that the government has chosen their side and is funding the genocide with our tax dollars. I would not support funding Hamas either and didn't agree with us supporting them over the PA.

I agree with 1-3 and I'd offer up #4 for consideration ...

(4) Both sides have committed a lot of war crimes

I mean, we and others fund the hell out of Hamas. Every bit of ais sent to Gaza is taken by Hamas. You think they are taking the financial aid from the world and using it to buy food and medical care for their people? If you do, you're insane, they are using aid to buy weapons. Weapons that even pre-October 7th were being used too fire rockets into Israel daily. This is not a peaceful group, they are the equivalent of Al Qaeda.

I understand you believe they are justified because they live under Israeli control (which they do not really, since they do with their money and people as they please). But there is no winning for Israel either, it's not like they can formally recognize Hamas/Gaza, and they can't let people just go back and forth at will because we've seen the bus stop bombings and more. I'm not actually sure there is a way out as long as Hamas runs Gaza and the other arab countries do not do a thing. Egypt is not lining up to help them, in fact their border crossing may be rougher.

This is where the mask comes off. They're polar opposites with completely different goals. They mostly despise each other. Similar to people who compare the Taliban to ISIS. You can't clump every Arab into a single group.

Regarding the other stuff, aid was mostly being handled by large organizations with strong reputations. Doctors without Borders, UNRWA, Red Cross, Save the Children, etc. If their aid was being stolen, I'm sure they would have expressed that. The biggest threat to aid was targeted assassinations by the IDF which are quite common.

I can't find any evidence that Hamas is stealing aid and selling it (who would they even sell it to?). They don't need to do that either because Qatar just drops off suitcases of cash for them when they need it (and Israel has helped them out over the years too). If you want to hurt Hamas, you target Qatar. But we can't because they give our defense industry billions for weapons which I guess makes you an ally.


This part is also really weird. People in Gaza absolutely live under Israeli control. It's a concentration camp by every definition. Israel controls who and what enters the prison down to the calorie (not kidding, they count the calories). Every resource from clean water to access to the internet is controlled by Israel. The idea that people living in Gaza have any autonomy is pure fiction.

If you want to learn more about Hamas and how it came to be, I'd highly recommend Radio War Nerd's history of the group. John Dolan is a professor and probably one of the most knowledgeable Americans on the Middle East where he lived and taught for some time. It's mostly the early years, so doesn't cover modern events. But you get an idea for how they came about and what their position is.

https://player.fm/series/war-nerd-ra...404-hamas-pt-1

https://player.fm/series/war-nerd-ra...pt-2-1988-2006

There's evidence but probably not enough to convince anyone it's "systemic" right now. I think it's fair to expect some "irregularities" here and there.

re: Red Cross. There was an article on why Red Cross doesn't do more to see the hostages. The bottom line is they are in no position to make any demands and they want to stay neutral so they don't make any negative statements against Hamas. But yeah, the reason why Red Cross hasn't visited the hostages is Hamas, not their lack of willingness.

re: UNRWA. Fire everyone including leadership team. Replace leadership team with one that is truly neutral, don't get into politics, establish clear cut rules for neutrality, and rehire & rebuild. Maybe talk to Red Cross (see above) on how they try to maintain neutrality, hire right people that don't publicly participate or condone Oct 7-like terrorism, all the while provided needed services. I understand it's hard to not go "native" when they hire from the "native population", so maybe get some idealistic western college kids to do a gap year in Gaza to help out.

i24NEWS

And now, per Paul Harvey, for the rest of the story

Regarding calorie counting, it was back in the 2007 blockade. If it's happening now, provide your non-tiktok and non-X sources. I would like to read more about it.

re: Israel controlling who enters & exits prison. We forget the role Egypt plays and, of course, the lack of significant support from any other Arab country besides Iran/Lebanon besides words. I'm pretty sure Egypt views Hamas as a threat also (along with Israel, Lebanon, Jordan, Kuwait) and hence the strict restrictions. Maybe if they promise to stay peaceful and not align with a country's internal enemy (Egypt), not try cause internal strife (Lebanon), overthrow countries that invite you in (Jordan), root for another country that invades another Arab country (Kuwait) or slaughter 1,100+ and kidnap 200+ people (Israel) .... the attitudes could change?

Rafah Border Crossing - Wikipedia

For the Palestinians, they need to learn to live in the modern world and accept reality. Make peace, not going to get everything you want. West Bank, faults and all, is trying. Hamas in Gaza, not so much.

Just a moment...

Gaza isn't in Egypt, Lebanon, or Jordan. Are you too dumb to pull up a fucking map?

Do you know how insane it is to tell people in a concentration camp to accept reality? Just psycho shit dude. Seek psychiatric help.

My rebuttal is it's obvious you don't know where Egypt or Jordan are on the map.

No doubt there were significant restrictions going in/out of Gaza (and West Bank) pre-Oct 7. re: your prison/concentration camp claim, just pointing out that it's not Israel alone and Egypt & Jordan (for West Bank) plays a significant role (with the other countries for emphasis).

Hamas & PA haven't been very good neighbors in the Middle-East neighborhood subdivision. The parents are the neighborhood
unemployed, welfare queen troublemakers; the rich but power tripping grandfather (Iran) is paying the mortgage; the uncle (UNRWA) comes to supposedly help but is really an enabler to the woe is me, victim mentality; and it's very unfortunate the kids are paying the price.

Why don't Egypt nor Jordan have open borders with the Palestinians or welcome them with open arms? Rhetorical question, we know the answer, see below. Why don't you go yell about Egypt or Jordan? Another rhetorical question, we know the answer ...


Hamas (and to a lesser extent PA nowadays), need to read the below book, or something similar.

The idea that it is other countries responsibility to help ethnically cleanse land for a another country is insane. Not to mention morally repugnant to demand people have to leave their homes and lands so a far right ethnostate can expand its reach.

There are well over 5 million Palestinians that Isreal restricts basic human rights to. Hamas is maybe 40,000 members. Probably much less since October.

Same propaganda and justification the Nazis used. Seek help.

Put whatever slant you want on it (and your misinterpretation of what I’m saying) but bottom line - others Arab countries contribute to this prison/concentration camp you claim is happening. See map and location of where Egypt and Jordan.

I read they were trying to reword it but yeah, my guess is lower odds now.

To be clear, in this proposal neither side accepted the Blinken proposal. So, call it a "both sides" non-acceptance.

Some progress on the "rewording", new language.

Just a moment...
A little more specifics on the rewording.

8% of the population.

Just a moment...

Nothing confirmed yet by western MSM but lots of chatter that Mohammed Deif, head of Hamas military wing, was taken out in that strike in the safe zone strike that kill a lot of people, some innocent I’m sure.

I guess Hamas was hiding amongst civilians/safezone after all (in addition to holding hostages in civilian buildings). Still no confirmation on Deif but another brigade commander has gone to collect his 72 virgins (or 72 raisins)

Israel-Hamas war: At least 90 Palestinians reported killed in Israeli strike in southern Gaza targeting Mohammed Deif | CNN

Should’ve stayed in Qatar.

I wonder if US knew about this beforehand and what they said? This target is prob one the US did not have clear veto over.

They are now saying it wasn't a missile. Instead, it was a bomb smuggled into the safe house that had been there for two months. It was detonated once they confirmed he was in residence.

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Israel has finally said Deif has gone to eat his 72 raisins.

They have been wrong before though. If true (and even if not) been a good couple weeks for Bibi.

Interesting to see Irans response. I have to believe it’ll be much more severe than a bunch of missiles/drones which were knocked out of the sky and showed Irans impotence.

Just a moment...

Needless to say if you are traveling over the Middle East, reschedule

Good to see some internal reviews here …

reuters.com

The Iranian attack did kill an innocent 7-year old girl in Israel. It wasn't reported much because she was Bedouin and those Arab communities don't get bomb shelters like the white communities do due to apartheid.

Fun times. Major escalation.

If there are any Americans in Lebanon, return now or don't complain if this war widens and you get trapped.

I remember watching a Bourdain episode on Lebanon. I'd like to visit one day when its economy recovers and there's peace & calm.

https://www.bbc.com/news/live/cxx2y4dpr3et

Lebonese are some of the kindest people you will ever meet. My cousin is married to a Lebonese man, and they go back to Lebanon regularly. It is really heartbreaking what the people there have gone through.

I rented a basement apartment from a Lebanese couple. The evening of 9/11, when everybody else was in shock, they began a 2 day celebration. We moved out a few months later.

Beirut is one of the coolest cities I've ever been to. It's a bit of a melting pot of religions and people and everyone is extremely friendly. Baalbek ranks up there with Chichenitza as the best historical sites I've even seen. But I'm a Roman history nerd.

Well this was a creative attack angle.

Hezbollah members wounded in Lebanon when pagers explode

I'm sure they had their reasons, but you'd think it was more valuable for the Israelis to know where they were with location tracking and maybe even listening in. Wonder how they made it happen.

A couple vids

x.com


Edit: I've seen some articles saying hundreds or thousands injured, that's a lot of pagers. Final tally to come ...

So a while back our government found that cartels in South America were buying lanyards from Amazon. So we got Amazon to sell them lanyards with tracking chips in them. This ended up coming out because once whatever operation was over someone at Amazon found that had all of these lanyards in their warehouse and shipped them out to government agencies. So we had to go through ours checking for a specific type and get rid of them. I don't know a lot of the details because it's not my lane. Our CIO had me checking my area and my team for that specific type of lanyard.

I'm guessing the Israelis got a similar deal with whoever supplies Hezbollah but just a guess.

@atocep. You seem to know more about these things than regular folks.

There was one time when the government was asking Apple to break the encryption/password on the iPhone but Apple refused. It always seemed weird to me that the government couldn't use a super computer (or something) to hack it. Thoughts on whether the iPhone encryption/password etc. can be hacked?

I didn't even know that Tesla made pagers

Pretty terrifying what humans are capable of

My first thought on this is:

Could a bad actor, theoretically, explode every cell phone/tablet in the US at once? Wasn't really something I ever worried about until now TBH.

It feels like if non-altered cell phones/tablets could explode, we'd know about it b/c some small amount would have just malfunctioned and done it.

I'm guessing that Israel got access to the supplier and altered the pagers.

I'll sleep better knowing that our phones aren't manufactured in China. Oh...wait.

Funny.


I didn't know ANYONE still made pagers.

CNN is reporting 9 killed, 2,800 wounded and 170 in critical.

That’s a lot of Hezbollah.

Looks like the pagers were the Gold Apollo 900, made in Taiwan. They look like the classic old Motorola pagers we used to have with a regular AAA battery.